A bombing at a football match yesterday killed three people and injured 11 others in eastern Afghanistan, a police official told AFP, as the Taliban announced an end to a partial truce in the country. “A motorcycle rigged with a bomb exploded during a football match,” said Sayed Ahmad Babazai, police chief of eastern Khost province, giving details of the toll. Abdul Fatah Wakman, president of the Khost Football Federation, told AFP the three people killed were brothers. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. But on Monday the Taliban announced they would resume attacks against Afghan forces, only a day after President Ashraf Ghani committed to continuing the partial truce at least until talks between Kabul and the Taliban kick off, supposedly on March 10.

At least 50 people were killed in multiple attacks by armed ‘bandits’ on villages in an area of northern Nigeria rife with cattle theft and kidnappings, local officials said yesterday. Sources said around 100 armed assailants stormed into the villages of Kerawa, Zareyawa and Minda in Kaduna state at dawn on Sunday, gunning down worshippers as they left a mosque for morning prayers before killing residents, burning and looting homes. Several people were injured in the attacks and were taken to nearby hospitals. The attacks were in retaliation for villagers allegedly assisting recent army operations against the so-called bandits in their forest hideouts, local counsellor Dayyabu Kerawa told AFP.