At least 17 people have died in a blast in a crowded public bath house in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province.
At least 23 people were injured in the attack, which took place in the town of Spin Boldak, on the Pakistan border.
Officials said a suicide bomber was behind the blast, which targeted a police commander inside the building.
The blast happened as the bath house was packed with people getting ready for Friday prayers.
“A suicide bomber blew up explosives strapped to his chest at a public bath in Spin Boldak,” border police official Gen Abdul Razaq told news agency Agence France Presse.
A local Afghan intelligence source in Spin Boldak told the BBC that a local police commander called Ramazan always used the bath house, on the town’s main road, ahead of Friday prayers.
Afghanistan’s security institutions have been targeted in recent weeks in a wave of attacks on the country’s army and police who will eventually take over security responsibilities from international forces.
No-one has yet claimed to have carried out the attack but the town is situated some 70 miles (110km) east of the provincial capital of Kandahar, a province that has long been a Taliban stronghold.
A statement from the governor of Kandahar’s office called the attack unIslamic.
“This brutal and inhumane act was the work of the enemies of Islam and humanity,” said Zalmai Ayoubi.
The attack is one of the deadliest in recent months and has been condemned by President Hamid Karzai, according to a source close to the president in Kabul who spoke to the BBC.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.