<p class="title">Eight people were killed and 45 wounded in a series of explosions targeting a cricket match in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, officials said Saturday, the first attack since the holy month of Ramadan began.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The blasts exploded among spectators crowded into the stadium at around 11pm (1830 GMT) on Friday evening as they watched the local "Ramadan Cup", the provincial governor's office said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">No group has yet claimed the murders but the Taliban said they were not responsible in a WhatsApp message.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, on the border with Pakistan, has a Taliban presence and is also a stronghold of the Islamic State group.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In September 2017 IS claimed a suicide bombing on a cricket match in Kabul which left three dead and five injured.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Saturday condemned the attack in Jalalabad.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"The terrorists did not stop killing our people even during the holy month of Ramadan ... by carrying out a terrorist attack in a populated sport stadium, once again they have proved that they are not bound to any creed or religion, and they are the enemy of humanity," a statement from his office said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Cricket in Afghanistan struggled under the hardline Islamist Taliban regime in the late 1990s, which viewed sports as a distraction from religious duties.</p>.<p class="bodytext">But its popularity has surged in the years since the US invasion, a dizzying rise which saw Afghanistan become part of the elite group of Test nations last year.</p>
<p class="title">Eight people were killed and 45 wounded in a series of explosions targeting a cricket match in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, officials said Saturday, the first attack since the holy month of Ramadan began.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The blasts exploded among spectators crowded into the stadium at around 11pm (1830 GMT) on Friday evening as they watched the local "Ramadan Cup", the provincial governor's office said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">No group has yet claimed the murders but the Taliban said they were not responsible in a WhatsApp message.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, on the border with Pakistan, has a Taliban presence and is also a stronghold of the Islamic State group.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In September 2017 IS claimed a suicide bombing on a cricket match in Kabul which left three dead and five injured.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Saturday condemned the attack in Jalalabad.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"The terrorists did not stop killing our people even during the holy month of Ramadan ... by carrying out a terrorist attack in a populated sport stadium, once again they have proved that they are not bound to any creed or religion, and they are the enemy of humanity," a statement from his office said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Cricket in Afghanistan struggled under the hardline Islamist Taliban regime in the late 1990s, which viewed sports as a distraction from religious duties.</p>.<p class="bodytext">But its popularity has surged in the years since the US invasion, a dizzying rise which saw Afghanistan become part of the elite group of Test nations last year.</p>