Suicide Bomber Kills 29 Outside Bank In Afghanistan

Afghan men carry a victim of a powerful car bomb in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, on June 22, 2017. Twenty people were killed June 22 when a powerful car bomb struck a bank in Afghanistan's Lashkar Gah city as government employees were queueing to withdraw salaries, the latest bloody attack during the holy month of Ramadan. / AFP PHOTO / NOOR MOHAMMAD

The governor of Afghanistan's southern Helmand province has raised the death toll in the suicide car bombing outside a bank there to 29, saying most of those killed in the explosion were civilians.

Hayatullah Hayat, the provincial governor, says the attack on Thursday outside the Kabul Bank in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, also wounded 60 people.

However, there were reportedly many Afghan National Army soldiers inside the bank at the time of the explosion. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Afghanistan's southern Helmand province has been at the center of bitter battles between the Afghan security forces, aided by NATO troops, and the Taliban, who are believed to control nearly 80 percent of Helmand's countryside.