Police and civilians at the site of the suicide attack in front of the Indian consulate, in Jalalabad. Photograph: Noorullah Shirzada/AFP/Getty Images  Three suicide bombers have killed at least nine civilians, most of them children, in a failed attack on the Indian consulate in an Afghan city.  Police fired on the suicide bombers as they approached a checkpoint outside the consulate in Jalalabad, near the border with Pakistan, prompting one of them to set off their explosives-laden car.  The blast killed nine bystanders, and wounded another 24, including a policeman. Six of the dead and three of the wounded were children, said Jalalabad hospital director, Dr Humayun Zahir. All three attackers also died from either gunfire or the explosion.  In Delhi, India's external affairs ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said that all Indian officials in the consulate were safe.  Afghanistan's main insurgent group, the Taliban, denied it had carried out the attack in a text message. Militant groups known for attacking Indian interests include Lashkar-e-Taiba, blamed for the 2008 attack on Mumbai that killed 166 people.  LeT has been active in Afghanistan in recent years, often teaming up with insurgent groups operating in the eastern part of the country near the frontier with Pakistan. Last year Nato forces arrested a senior LeT leader in eastern Afghanistan.  India has been frustrated by Pakistan's failure to crack down on Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has strong historical links with Pakistani intelligence. Pakistan has always viewed India as a potential rival in Afghanistan, which it considers its strategic backyard.  "Such coward attacks will not deter India from providing reconstruction and developmental assistance to our true friend, Afghanistan," the Indian embassy in Kabul tweeted in reaction to the consulate bombing.  Masum Khan Hashimi, the deputy police chief of Nangarhar province said the attack began when three men in a car approached the checkpoint. Two of the men got out of the car wearing vests rigged with explosives and a police guard immediately opened fire on them, Hashimi said. He added that the third man then detonated a large bomb located inside the car.  In 2010, two Kabul guest houses popular among Indians were attacked, killing more than six. India blamed that attack on LeT. The Indian embassy was bombed in 2008 and again in 2009, leaving 75 people dead in the two attacks.  In other violence in the same province, 22 police officers and 76 Taliban were killed in the Sherzad district of Nangarhar in two days of battles with insurgents that broke out when militants shot a tribal elder, officials and police said.  The militant death toll could not be checked independently, but four separate officials confirmed the police death toll.  Fighting has intensified in eastern and southern parts of Afghanistan in recent months, especially since the mid-June handover of security responsibilities from the US-led international military coalition to the Afghan national security forces.  The Taliban have been fighting to regain ground they lost in the past three years to foreign forces, and violence is expected to increase again after the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Delhi says its staff are all safe but Lashkar-e-Taiba group suspected as nine killed after three militants let off explosives