Twin blasts at Afghan market wound 18

Twin bomb blasts tore through a local market in northern Afghanistan's Baghlan province on Monday, wounding 18 people, most of them civilians, officials said. The explosions occurred one after another, with the second coming after security forces arrived to investigate the first blast, local administration chief Amir Gul told AFP. "There was a blast in Sher Market in Baghlan-i-Markazi. The first blast occurred and injured some civilians, the second one followed shortly after the first one. Eighteen people, five of them security personnel, are injured," he said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the blasts were similar to attacks carried out by the Taliban as part of their insurgency. Roadside explosions, mostly involving home-made bombs, are a common tactic used by the Taliban, who are fighting an insurgency against the US-backed government of Kabul and its Western military allies.