KABUL           -   Ten people, including four women and a child, were killed in a roadside bomb explosion in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Friday.

The blast occurred in the volatile district of Jaghatu in Ghazni Province. All the victims of the blast were civilians, said Aref Noori, a spokesman for the provincial governor, adding that six others were wounded.

“Unfortunately, in the explosion, 10 people, including four women and a child, were killed,” Noori said. Marwa Amini, deputy spokeswoman for the Afghan Interior Ministry in Kabul, confirmed the blast and death toll.

Officials said the bomb was planted to target Afghan security forces, since it detonated some 300 meters from a military base. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but officials blamed the Taliban.

Meanwhile, a suicide car bomb detonated near an army base in the eastern Afghan province of Khost on Friday, killing one soldier and wounding several before the army repelled the attack on the base by four gunmen, the district chief said. The blast, 50 metres from the base, was heard several miles away and damaged several shops, homes and a school, Akbar Zadran, the chief of Sabari district, told Reuters. Four gunmen attacked the base but were killed after an hour-long gunbattle, Zadran said.