A suicide bomber in eastern Afghanistan killed and wounded at least 50 men on Tuesday (May 12) in an attack on the funeral of a police commander attended by government officials and a member of parliament, officials said.

The Taliban denied responsibility for the attack on the mourners gathered in Khewa district of Nangarhar province on the border with Pakistan.

Islamic State militants are known to operate in the province.

Attaullah Khogayani, a spokesman for the provincial governor said 15 people including Abdullah Malikzai, a member of the provincial council were killed and around 45 others were wounded.

Sohrab Qaderi, a member of Nangarhar’s provincial council, said at least 50 people were killed or wounded. The member of parliament, Hazrat Ali, survived, he said.

Islamic State fighters first appeared in eastern Afghanistan in around 2014 and battle the Taliban as well as government and foreign forces.

The Afghan affiliate of Islamic State, known as Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), after an old name for the region that includes Afghanistan, has carried out some of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan over recent years.

Also on Tuesday, unidentified gunmen attacked a hospital in the capital, Kabul, killing at least eight people.

No militant group claimed responsibility for either attack.

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 A Taliban truck bomb killed at least 20 people and wounded 95 when it exploded near a hospital in southern Afghanistan on Thursday (September 19), a provincial official said, with casualties expected to rise as rescuers sift the rubble.

Some of wounded people who were taken to Kandahar Hospital for treatment said the blast occurred in the early morning.

The Taliban, who have been carrying out nearly daily attacks since the collapse of peace talks with the United States this month, said the target was a nearby building of the government’s intelligence department in Qalat, the capital of Zabul province.

The militants wanted to target a training base for Afghanistan’s powerful National Directorate of Security but parked the vehicle laden with explosives outside a hospital gate nearby, said another defense ministry source.

Twenty bodies and 95 wounded people have been evacuated from the blast site, said Haji Atta Jan Haqbayan, a member of the provincial council in Qalat. (REUTERS)

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Two separate suicide bombings rocked Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing at least 48 people and wounding 80 others.

At least 22 people were killed and 26 others wounded after a suicide bomber detonated his explosives around noon near the buildings of the Afghan defense ministry and the U.S. embassy, according to the Afghan interior ministry.

Eyewitnesses said that the area was crowded at the time of the bombing, and the causalities are feared to rise.

In a separate incident, a bombing hit a presidential election campaign rally earlier in the day in Charikar, the capital of central Parwan province, killing 26 people and wounding 42.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the two attacks. (REUTERS)