Two blasts kill eight in Afghan town

KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Two bombs, one worn by a suicide bomber, exploded in Afghanistan's southeastern town of Khost Monday and killed at least eight civilians, provincial officials said.
More than 40 other civilians were wounded in the blasts, provincial public health chief Amir Padshah Rahmatzai said.
The nature of the first bomb, which went off outside the province's power department, was not clear, Khost police chief Abdul Qayoum Baqizoi told a Reuters reporter in the town. The second was carried by a suicide bomber, he said.
"There was a bomb blast and a suicide attack," he said, adding the intended targets of both attacks were not known.
The blasts came hours after a suicide bomber killed three Afghan soldiers in southern Kandahar province. The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack.
Violence has surged to its highest level in recent years in Afghanistan where the al Qaeda-backed Taliban, ousted in a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, have made a comeback.
In the face of spreading Taliban raids, Washington, which has called Afghanistan its top foreign policy priority, is more than doubling its force in the country from 32,000 at the beginning of this year to an expected 68,000 by the year's end.
There are now about 57,000 U.S. troops in the country, along with about 33,000 from other Western countries.
Fighters have carried out a number of attacks this year against government offices and bases of foreign forces in Khost, which lies close to the border with Pakistan and is separated from other parts of Afghanistan by mountains.
Last month, militants targeted government buildings in the town with suicide bombings and seized hostages in a day of violence in which 11 insurgents and nine other people were killed. The following day, a suicide bomber killed seven civilians at a NATO base near the town.
U.S. commanders say insurgent attacks are already at their highest since the Taliban were toppled, and they expect violence to rise in coming months as additional troops deploy ahead of a presidential election in August.
(Writing by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Jerry Norton)

Source: Reuters