A suicide bomber blew himself up Thursday inside a mosque in southern Afghanistan, killing six people, including the provincial deputy governor of the province of Helmand and wounding 18 others, officials said.

According to provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal, the suicide bomber entered the mosque and blew himself up in the middle of a prayer ritual in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, southern Afghanistan, BBC reported.

“When the prayers started at the main mosque of Lashkar Gah... a suicide attacker who had strapped explosives to his body detonated. Six people praying, including the deputy provincial governor Haji Pir Mohammad, were martyred and 18 others were wounded. Among the wounded is a four-year-old child who was sitting at the entrance of the mosque and was begging,” Andiwal said.

The deputy governor, in his 50, was the centre of the world’s opium and heroin production and the focus of intense clashes between militants and British, US and Afghan government forces.

This is the first suicide-bombing incident inside an Afghan mosque, considered Afghanistan’s most second place.

The incident came hours after a suicide blast in the capital Kabul over an Afghan bus killed a civilian and wounded at least four other people, including an army officer. The extremist Taliban movement claimed the attack. Busses filled with army and police have become a favorite target for the Taliban. This kind of attack has killed at least 65 people since June 2007.