At least 15 people have been killed and 14 more wounded after an attacker blew himself up at a funeral in eastern Afghanistan.

There was no immediate claim of responsiblity but Taliban and militants from the so-called Islamic State group have stepped up assaults in recent months, with ordinary Afghans bearing the brunt of the violence.

"The death toll of the attack targeting a funeral ceremony in Behsud district of Nangarhar has increased to 15," a spokesman for Nangarhar's governor said.

Another 14 were wounded. All the casualties were civilians.

An earlier statement from the governor's office said 12 people had been killed in the attack near the provincial capital Jalalabad.

The bomber struck during the funeral ceremony for a former governor of Haska Mina district who died recently of natural causes, the statement said.

Photos posted on Twitter and Facebook purportedly of the scene terrified mourners, mostly elderly men, could be seen running from the scene.

While the Taliban is still responsible for the majority of attacks and casualties across Afghanistan, IS militants have been on a rampage this month.

The incident in Nangarhar, a province bordering Pakistan and a stronghold for IS, comes days after the group claimed an assault on a Shia cultural centre in Kabul that left 41 people dead and more than 80 wounded.

That followed a Christmas Day attack, also claimed by IS, near an Afghan intelligence agency compound in the Afghan capital that left six civilians dead.

On 18 December, militants from the group stormed an intelligence training compound in Kabul, triggering an intense gunfight with police, two of whom were wounded.

The Middle Eastern jihadist outfit has gained ground in Afghanistan since it first appeared in the region in 2015, and has scaled up its attacks in Kabul and elsewhere, including on security installations and the country's Shia minority.

The latest news comes at the end of a particularly deadly year for Afghans, with the number of civilian casualties on track to be one of the highest on record since the US invasion in 2001.

More than 8,000 civilians were killed or wounded in conflict-related violence in the first nine months of this year, according to data compiled by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

Last year's civilian casualty toll of 11,418 was the highest for a single year since the UN began systematically documenting civilian deaths and injuries in 2009.