HERAT — A roadside bomb hit a Kabul-bound passenger bus in western Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing at least eight people and wounding around 40, mostly women and children, officials said.

“It was a bomb planted by the Taliban to hit security forces but unfortunately it got a passenger bus,” Farah provincial police spokesman Muhibullah Muhib told Agence France Presse.

The explosion happened as the bus traveled through Bala Baluk district of Farah at 4:30 a.m.

Photos posted on social media purportedly of the bus showed the vehicle’s blackened shell and dozens of Afghan men standing at the scene.