At least eight killed in Afghan bomb

A car bomb exploded in a market in the southern Afghan province of Helmand on Wednesday killing at least eight people and wounding 17, police said.

Taliban insurgents have vowed to intensify attacks on Afghan and foreign troops countrywide, launch a wave of suicide bombings and attack supply lines from Pakistan this year in their campaign to overthrow the pro-Western Afghan government.

But provincial police chief Hussain Andiwal said no members of the security forces were in the farmers' market in Girishk district when the bomb went off.

"The explosives were inside a car parked in a weekly market where a sizable number of people were buying and selling goods," Andiwal said.

"The target was civilians. There no foreign or Afghan forces in the area," he said.

Taliban insurgents planted hundreds of roadside bombs and carried out more than 140 suicide attacks in 2007, contributing to a record year of violence that killed nearly 6,000, about a third of them civilians.  (Reuters)