Afghan police foil bomb attack in Kandahar

A would-be suicide bomber was shot dead close to the Indian consulate office building in Kandahar city, the provincial capital of southern Afghanistan's province of Kandahar on Thursday, police said. "At around midday, a man wearing an explosive jacket tried to approach the consulate gateway. The Afghan National Police identified the terrorist and fired on him after he ignored the police warning," the provincial police spokesman Zia Durrani told Xinhua. A police bomb disposal team arrived at the scene shortly after the shooting and defused the explosive on the spot, the official said. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. Earlier on Thursday, three civilians were killed when their vehicle set off an improvised explosive device (IED) in Gereshk district of the neighboring Helmand province, provincial police spokesman Abdul Ahad Chopan told Xinhua. Kandahar and Helmand are notorious for poppy growing and militancy. The Taliban insurgent group has intensified attacks recently as more than 20 suicide bombing took place in the militancy-hit country since the beginning of this year. About 2,900 civilians have been killed and nearly 5,700 wounded in conflicts and Taliban-led attacks in the country last year, according to UN mission officials