PULI ALAM: At least 17 people were killed in a car bomb explosion in an Afghan city south of Kabul on Thursday, officials and a medic said, just hours before the scheduled start of a ceasefire.

"Seventeen bodies and 21 wounded people were brought to our hospital," Sediqullah, a senior doctor at a hospital in the city of Puli Alam in Logar province, told AFP. The interior ministry confirmed the blast, which occurred ahead of a three-day ceasefire starting Friday between the Taliban and Kabul.