5 Killed in Car Bomb near Afghan Police HQ

A suicide car bombing killed five people and wounded two dozen others near a police headquarters in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, officials said.

Mohammad Rasoul, a spokesman for the Afghan army, said three police were killed and three others wounded in the blast in Lashkar Gah, capital of troubled Helmand province.

Enayatullah Ghafari, public health director in the province, told Agence France Presse that two dead civilians were also brought to local hospitals.

"I'm sure there are more dead," Ghafari added.

Some 25 other people, both police and civilians, were also wounded, he said.

Lashkar Gah was one of seven areas handed over to Afghan government control by NATO forces in July in a first wave of transition which will see all foreign combat forces leave by the end of 2014.

There have been a string of attacks in Lashkar Gah since British troops formally handed control of security in the area to the Afghan army on July 20, including a suicide car bomb attack on police headquarters which killed 13 people.

Daud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Helmand provincial administration, told AFP the bombing took place at a center contracted to provide food and clothing for Afghan security forces.

"Some police had gone there to fetch maybe food or other things when the attack took place," he said, adding that the facility was near police headquarters.

"There are casualties, death and injuries but I don't have a figure at the moment," Ahmadi added, saying the attack was a suicide car bombing.

An AFP reporter saw multiple ambulances leaving the scene of the bombing.

The Taliban were not immediately contactable for comment on the attack.

There are around 140,000 foreign forces, mainly from the United States, fighting a Taliban-led insurgency which has been raging since they were ousted from power by a U.S.-led invasion in October 2001.