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Central & South Asia
Twin blasts hit Afghan town
Bombers target a mobile telephone shop and a market in southeastern city of Khost.
Last Modified: 22 Apr 2007 12:24 GMT
Afghan police have struggled to prevent a wave of Taliban suicide attacks [Reuters]

At least five people have been killed by two bomb blasts in Khost, a town in south-eastern Afghanistan.
 
In the first attack at least two people died when a bomb exploded in a mobile telephone shop in the town centre on Sunday morning.
 
Soon afterwards a suicide bomber blew himself up - killing at least three - when challenged by a policeman.
A doctor at a local hospital said two men were killed and seven wounded in the first blast in the telephone shop. He said several of the wounded were in critical condition.
A senior provincial police officer however said that three people had died in that blast.
 
"Police had spotted the suicide bomber who began to ran away and before being caught blew himself up, killing three civilians and wounding several people, including police," Wazir Badshah told reporters close to the scene.
 
Hospital officials later said that seven people were killed in total in both blasts, although some reports said that as many as 17 people were killed altogether.
 
Taliban blamed
 
No one claimed responsibility for the bomb, but shopkeepers said the Taliban may have targeted the shop as local people regularly download music into their mobile phones there.
 
The Taliban have targeted music shops and banned music, film and videos during their 1996-2001 rule of Afghanistan.
 
General Mohammad Ayub, the provincial police chief, said that the tribal dispute was the cause of the earlier market blast however.
 
The city of Khost has been the scene of several attacks by the Taliban in recent weeks.
Source:
Agencies
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