Alwaght- The death toll from a terrorist bomb attack in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday has risen to 68 people, officials said on Wednesday.
A suicide bomber detonated explosives amid a crowd of protesters outside a police station near the Pakistan border in the Momandara district of Nangarhar province, said provincial spokesman Attaullah Khogyani.
It's not clear what the protest was about, nor who carried out the attack.
Attahullah Khogyani, spokesman for the provincial governor, said 165 others were wounded in the attack.
The bombing happened when a group from the district of Achin came to Momandara district to block the main highway between the capital Jalalabad and the Torkham border with Pakistan.
The Taliban denied any involvement. No any other group immediately claimed responsibility, but both Taliban insurgents and the daesh(ISIS) are active in eastern Afghanistan, especially in Nangarhar province.
A local affiliate of the ISIS has emerged in recent years and carried out brazen and increasingly deadly attacks, most often targeting civilians and the country's minority Shiite Muslims, who it views as apostates. The Taliban and ISIS are enemies and have attacked each other's forces.
Both the Taliban and ISIS carry out near-daily attacks in Afghanistan targeting security forces and government officials.
Tuesday's attack was marked by one of the highest death tolls in attacks in Afghanistan this year. In January, a Taliban-claimed suicide bombing in the capital Kabul killed at least 103.
Afghan president Ashraf Ghani strongly condemned the suicide attack against the demonstrators in Nangarhar. In a statement he said that "attacks on civilian facilities, mosques, women, children, are all crimes against humanity."
