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Mortar attack on Afghan school kills three, wounds eight

Mortar attack on Afghan school kills three, wounds eight

By REUTERS

An Afghan policeman stands guard at the site of an explosion in Kabul, Afghanistan, in this January 4, 2016 file photo. Photo: Reuters

KABUL: A mortar bomb hit a secondary school in the eastern Afghan province of Khost on Monday, killing at least three pupils and wounding eight, the education ministry said in a statement. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, which coincided with the start of a meeting in Pakistan aimed at getting a stalled peace process with the Taliban back on track. Khost, on the border with Pakistan, has been relatively calm in recent months but last year dozens of people were killed in two suicide bomb attacks in April and July. On Monday, officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States met in Islamabad in a bid to restart a peace process that broke down in July when news was announced that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had died two years earlier.