At least 23 civilians have been killed and dozens injured in rocket attacks following a car bomb blast at a cattle market in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province.
A statement from the provincial governor's office said 23 civilians were killed and 15 others were injured, according to the Afghan news agency Tolo.
The incident took place in the Zol Bazaar area where terrorists fired rockets after a car bomb, the statement said.
A statement from the provincial governor's office said a car bomb had exploded near civilian homes, killing two assailants.
The car attack injured several civilians and damaged several homes.
The statement also rejected reports of rocket fire by Afghan security forces, saying the Taliban were involved in the attack.
Helmand Governor Muhammad Yasin has formed a security team to investigate the incident.
According to Reuters, the attack took place at a weekly cattle market in Helmand where hundreds of civilians were present, while the Taliban and the government, both sides, are blaming each other for the attack.
A spokesman for the Helmand governor said Taliban fighters fired several rockets near the cattle market, killing 23 civilians, including children.
On the other hand, Taliban spokesman Qari Yousaf Ahmadi said that the Afghan army fired several mortar bombs on the houses and cattle markets of the civilians and many civilians were killed.
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Several residents of Helmand Province, which is considered to be under Taliban control, said the shelling occurred at a time when there was a risk of clashes between Taliban fighters and government security forces in a residential area.
Earlier in the day, a car bomb had exploded in the Washer area of Helmand province, killing at least six civilians.
Attacks on government security forces have intensified since the Afghan Taliban struck a peace deal with the United States.
The UN mission in Afghanistan said in a report in late April that more than 500 civilians had been killed and more than 760 injured in the first three months of 2020.
The Afghan Interior Ministry said in a statement last week that more than 400 security personnel had been killed and wounded in Taliban attacks in one week.
Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Aryan told a news conference that the Taliban had carried out 222 attacks on Afghan security forces in the past week, killing 422 personnel.
He said the Taliban were also targeting religious scholars to put psychological pressure on the Afghan government.
Tariq Aryan said both imams had been killed in attacks on mosques in Kabul this month, and that it was the Taliban's job to "target religious scholars, especially in the past two weeks."
Read more: Kabul: Explosion during Friday prayers in a mosque, 4 people including the Imam were killed
Referring to the Taliban, he said that "other terrorist networks are operating under their umbrella".
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but a prominent cleric was killed in an ISIS attack on a mosque in the Green Zone a week ago.
The Taliban condemned both attacks on mosques.
Javed Faisal, a spokesman for the Afghan National Security Council, said the Taliban had not reduced its operations but had increased its attacks across the country.
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