( AFP ) - A suicide bomber wounded five Afghan civilians including children when he blew himself up Sunday near troops in southern Afghanistan, officials said.
The bomber struck just outside the town of Gereshk in Helmand province among a group of Afghan soldiers distributing food to a group of widows, the defence ministry said, retracting an earlier statement that five people were killed.
"A suicide bomber on foot exploded himself, resulting in the injury of five of our civilian countrymen including children," it said in a statement.
The district chief, Abdul Manaf, said the bomber had targeted a convoy of troops with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
The defence ministry did not mention the foreign soldiers and ISAF could not immediately confirm an attack.
The extremist Islamic Taliban movement has claimed responsibility for most of a wave of around 130 suicide bombings in Afghanistan this year.
They have however denied they were behind the country's worst such attack which killed nearly 80 people Tuesday, most of them children, in the northern province of Baghlan.