At least five militants of Lashkar-e-Taiba were killed in a premature explosion triggered by their own Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in East of Afghanistan.

The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said the militants were killed after the IED went off prematurely in Asmar district of Kunar.

The anti-government armed militant groups have not commented regarding the report so far.

Lashkar-e-Taiba, a military wing of Markaz ad-Dawat wal Irshad (MDI), is a Pakistan-based militant group which has operations in several South Asian countries, including Afghanistan.

It was found in 1990s by Hafez Saeed but it is believed the group has not been heavily involved in the Taliban-led campaign against western forces in Afghanistan, but is believed to operate in Kunar and Nuristan in the east of the country.

According to reports, Lashkar-e-Taiba has close links with Islamist militants based in Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, but retains its own distinct and independent identity and ideology.

The premature blast resulting to death of the militants comes as the anti-government armed militant groups have been frequently using IEDs as the weapon of their choice to target the security forces and Afghan officials.

However, in majority of such attacks, the ordinary Afghan civilians are targeted with the UN mission in Afghanistan accusing the militants for the majority of the civilian deaths and injuries.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said late in October that the mission has documented 8,397 conflict-related civilian casualties (2,562 deaths and 5,835 injured) between 1 January and 30 September, representing a one per cent decrease compared to the same period in 2015.

Ground engagements remained the leading cause of civiliancasualties, followed by suicide and complex attacks, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

UNAMA further added that the anti-Government Elements caused 61 per cent of civilian casualties – 1,569 civilian deaths and 3,574 injured (5,143 total civilian casualties).