AFGHANISTAN-HEART: A bicycle bomb Wednesday wounded at least 14 people at a busy market in western Afghanistan as Muslims prepared to celebrate the end of fasting month, officials said.

The bombing in Herat city comes a day after a series of attacks killed up to 50 people across the war-torn country.

"Fourteen civilians were injured when the bomb attached to a bicycle exploded in Herat city," provincial police chief Sayed Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada told AFP.

Provincial governor's spokesman Moyeedin Noori said the bomb was detonated remotely.

"The explosion happened in a market where the crowd of people were shopping for Eid," Noori said.

Hospital official Mohammad Rafiq Shirzai, however, said 18 people were wounded including three women.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but similar attacks are usually blamed on Taliban insurgents fighting to overthrow the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

NATO has some 130,000 US-led troops helping the government fight the Taliban, but they are due to pull out in 2014.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2012

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