The acting governor of Afghanistan's southeastern Khost province and several other senior provincial officials were wounded by a bomb inside the governor's office today, an Afghan army general said.
The wounds to the officials were not life-threatening and an investigation was launched to find out what had caused the explosion, the general, Mohammad Nawab, told reporters in the restive province on the border with Pakistan.
"The acting governor, his chief of staff, the head of education and five other people, including police were wounded in the blast," he said.
The blast came a week after a suicide bomber killed seven CIA officials and a Jordanian spy at a base in the province, where US-led forces have been fighting the Taliban-linked network of commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, based across the Pakistan border.
Al Qaeda's Afghan wing has claimed last week's attack at a US base in Afghanistan in which a double agent turned suicide bomber killed seven CIA officers, saying the attack was revenge for the deaths of their leaders.
"He detonated his explosive belt, concealed from the eyes of those who do not believe in the Hereafter, in a gathering of American and Jordanian intelligence men," Mustafa Abul-Yazid, the leader of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, said in a statement posted on a website today used by al-Qaeda linked organisations
There was no immediate report of a claim of responsibility for today's blast, but Haqqani's followers and Taliban allies have carried out numerous attacks in the past in the province and the provincial capital.
Reuters