A roadside bomb killed 18 civilians Sunday, mostly women and children, after it struck a small bus coming from a wedding in a lawless district of eastern Afghanistan’s Ghazni province, police said.
Deputy provincial police chief Col. Asadullah Ensafi said the blast occurred in the Andar district as the bus travelled from one village to another just before dusk.
He said the dead include 14 women, three men and a child. Ensafi said the blast wounded five women and two were in critical condition.
Ensafi said he had no other details, as the remote area was not easily accessible to security forces.
Andar is one of the few districts in Ghazni where the Taliban retain some measure of control and often attack security forces, mostly by laying bombs along roads.
Roadside bombs are the Taliban’s weapon of choice and are responsible for the overwhelming majority of civilian casualties.
In a statement Sunday night, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force condemned the attack, saying it would “fight against extremists whose senseless acts endanger innocent women and children.”
