*JALALABAD: *Eight people were killed and 45 wounded in a series ofexplosions targeting a cricket match in the eastern Afghan city ofJalalabad, officials said Saturday, the first attack since the holy monthof Ramadan began.
The blasts exploded among spectators crowded into the stadium at around11pm on Friday evening as they watched the local “Ramadan Cup”, theprovincial governor’s office said.
No group has yet claimed the murders but the Taliban said they were notresponsible in a WhatsApp message.
Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, on the border with Pakistan,has a Taliban presence and is also a stronghold of the Islamic State group.
In September 2017 IS claimed a suicide bombing on a cricket match in Kabulwhich left three dead and five injured.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Saturday condemned the attack in Jalalabad.
“The terrorists did not stop killing our people even during the holy monthof Ramadan … by carrying out a terrorist attack in a populated sportstadium, once again they have proved that they are not bound to any creedor religion, and they are the enemy of humanity,” a statement from hisoffice said.
Cricket in Afghanistan struggled under the hardline Islamist Taliban regimein the late 1990s, which viewed sports as a distraction from religiousduties.
But its popularity has surged in the years since the US invasion, adizzying rise which saw Afghanistan become part of the elite group of Testnations last year.