Twin blasts kill two, wound 19 in Afghanistan

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JALALABAD: Two people died and 19 were wounded, including police, in two bomb blasts in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad on Monday, a provincial official said.

The first explosion went off in front of a mosque and, when police and locals rushed to the scene to help the wounded, a second bomb detonated, spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai told AFP.

"In the blasts, two people were killed and 19 people were wounded," said Abdulzai, adding that most of the casualties were from the second explosion.

The target of the blast is not known but there was a meeting ongoing at the mosque in the city's eastern edge, said Abdulzai.

Another provincial official, speaking anonymously, added that pro-government religious clerics had been meeting at the mosque and they may have been the target.

                                                                                                                                                      Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011