KABUL (Reuters) - 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 onAfghan and foreign troops countrywide, launch a wave of suicidebombings and attack supply lines from Pakistan this year intheir campaign to overthrow the pro-Western Afghan government.
But provincial police chief Hussain Andiwal said no membersof the security forces were in the farmers' market in Girishkdistrict when the bomb went off.
"The explosives were inside a car parked in a weekly marketwhere a sizable number of people were buying and sellinggoods," Andiwal said.
"The target was civilians. There no foreign or Afghanforces in the area," he said.
Taliban insurgents planted hundreds of roadside bombs andcarried out more than 140 suicide attacks in 2007, contributingto a record year of violence that killed nearly 6,000, about athird of them civilians.
(Writing by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Jon Hemming)
