One policeman was killed and five security members wounded Tuesday morning when a bomb they were defusing went off in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, a provincial government spokesman said.

"The police discovered an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) near a car dealer market in Lashkar Gah. A bomb squad team arrived at the scene later. The IED was detonated through a remote controller. As a result one cop was killed and three policemen and two members of the intelligence agency were wounded," spokesman Omar Zwak told Xinhua.

Following the blast, which took place at around 7:00 a.m. local time in the city, 555 km south of national capital Kabul, a pursuit operation was launched against the suspect.

Helmand has been notorious for poppy cultivation and the Taliban's hotbed.

Taliban militants, who have been waging an insurgency for more than one decade, use IEDs to launch roadside bomb attack on security forces but the lethal weapon also inflicted casualties on civilians.

A total of 2,500 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in acts of terrorism and violence from Jan. 1 to mid-June this year, said the United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan recently.