Kandahar, Afghanistan:
A bomb planted on a motorcycle exploded in a vegetable market in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing eight people at dusk as residents broke their daily fast for the holy month of Ramadan, authorities said.
Separately, Afghan police said a rocket fired into the Afghan capital early on Wednesday landed on the grounds of the presidential palace. It was unclear whether the rocket caused any casualties or damage.
The motorcycle bomb in the south was parked at the market in the Dihrawud district of Uruzgan province, said provincial council director Amanullah Otaq. He said eight people were killed and dozens wounded.
Uruzgan provincial spokesman Hamid Milad Mudasir confirmed the incident, but said he could not confirm how many people were killed because family members had taken many of the bodies away immediately after the attack.
The blast was the latest in a series of attacks in the turbulent south, where the Taliban are pushing back against a concerted campaign from U.S. and NATO troops to quell the insurgency.
In the capital, Mohammad Zahir, the chief of criminal investigation for the Kabul police, confirmed that at least one rocket landed in the city early on Wednesday morning.
Ezatullah, an Afghan police officer at the scene, said that the rocket landed inside the presidential palace compound.
Another police official in that district of the capital also confirmed that it landed within the perimeter of the spacious presidential palace compound. That police official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the political nature of the information.
Also in the south, a gunman killed a woman who works for the Afghan government as she was on her way to work in Kandahar city. The assailant shot Rabia Sadat twice as she was getting into a car outside her home on Tuesday morning, said her father, Sayed Hussein Sadat.
Sadat worked for the province's work and social affairs department, said Zalmai Ayubi, a spokesman for Kandahar's provincial government.
Ayubi said it was not clear why Sadat was killed, and her father said he did not know of any threats against his daughter. Insurgents regularly target government workers or women who attend school or work in offices.
Also on Tuesday, NATO said that one of its cargo planes collided with a surveillance drone in
eastern Afghanistan a day earlier. The C-130 plane made an emergency landing at a nearby base but was only lightly damaged and no one aboard was injured, said Italian army Capt. Pietro D'Angelo, a spokesman for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The drone, an RQ-7 Shadow, went down and has not been located yet, he said. Pietro said they were searching for the craft, which was not carrying weapons when it collided with the plane.