Three people were killed by a car bomb in Afghanistan

Three people were killed and five wounded when a powerful car bomb exploded at the gates of Jalalabad airport in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, police told Reuters.

The casualties appeared to be civilians, said Obaidullah Talwar, a senior police detective for eastern Nangarhar province, of which Jalalabad is capital.

There was no immediate indication whether the blast was linked to deadly protests and riots that have racked Afghanistan since copies of the Koran were inadvertently burned at a major NATO base last week.