At least three killed in suicide bombing in Afghan city of Kandahar

At least 12 others wounded in blast that targeted a group of people waiting outside a bank in city centre.

At least three people have been killed and 12 others wounded in a suicide bombing in front of a bank in Afghanistan’s Kandahar city, according to local police and officials.

The ISIL (ISIS) group claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack on its Telegram channel.

The explosion at around 8:00am (03:30 GMT) targeted a group of people waiting outside the New Kabul Bank branch in central Kandahar city.

Local police and Taliban officials said three people were killed and 12 were wounded. A source at a major hospital in the southern city said the toll was much higher, the AFP news agency reported.

“Mirwais Hospital has received 20 people killed since this morning from the explosion,” the source told AFP on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal for speaking to the media.

Inamullah Samangani, director of information and culture of Kandahar province, said the bank was busy with people collecting their salaries when the explosion went off.

“Commonly our compatriots gather there to collect their salaries,” he said, adding that the “victims were civilians”.

One of the victims, Khalil Ahmad, a father of eight in his 40s, had gone to the bank to get his salary, his nephew said at his funeral later Thursday.

“He was just an ordinary, simple guy; he used to work as a painter,” Mohammad Shafiq Saraaj said, as Ahmad’s relatives gathered around his body wrapped in a white cloth for burial.

“Such incidents used to happen under the previous government … and now it is happening as well,” Saraaj said.

“We beg for security to be properly maintained in the country and especially in crowded places, and that our nation be saved