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."
Children were also among the victims, he said.
A Taliban spokesman denied responsibility for the attack. The Taliban launched about 140 suicide attacks in Afghanistan last year, but routinely deny responsibility for attacks where there are a large number of civilian casualties.
The Taliban spokesman said militants had killed several Afghan policemen with a remote-controlled roadside bomb in the same district earlier in the day. Helmand police chief Andiwal said two Afghan policemen were killed and two wounded in that attack.
Last year saw a record level of violence in Afghanistan that killed nearly 6,000 people, about a third of them civilians.
