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Masood Injured in Bomb Attack
KABUL, Sept 10 (News Agencies) - Afghan opposition commander Ahmad Shah Masood was treated by doctors for "minor injuries" following an assassination attempt which killed two bombers, his spokesman told Agence France-Presse (AFP) late Sunday.
Masood was being treated at his heavily guarded Khwaja Bahauddin residence in the north of the country, Waisuddin Salik said by satellite phone.
He said the two perpetrators of the "suicide attack" against Masood were killed when a booby-trapped camera they were handling exploded.
Two Arabs claiming to be journalists who wished to interview the opposition commander carried out the assassination attempt Sunday, the spokesman said.
"The suicide attack killed the two Arabs and slightly injured the commander," said Waisuddin Salik. "The commander's state of health was not giving cause for concern," he added.
"The bomb had been cleverly hidden in the camera and it exploded."
A source at the Afghan embassy in Dushanbe earlier told AFP the incident killed an official from Masood's opposition forces and wounded Masood in the leg.
The 49-year-old ethnic Tajik commander, seen as the last opposition against the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan, was "feeling fine," the embassy source added.
"This afternoon, Masood gave an interview in his office to a group of Arab journalists who arrived from Kabul. When the camera started filming, it exploded. It looks like a bomb had been concealed in it," the source said.
The Taliban captured Kabul in 1996, and now controls about 95% of the country.
But Masood's forces, a loose coalition of mainly ethnic Uzbek and Tajik commanders, continue to resist the Taliban in the far north of the war-ravaged country.
The Taliban administration is recognized only by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Masood became known as the "Lion of Panjsher" for doggedly resisting the Soviets during their 1979-89 invasion to take his stronghold of the Panjsher valley, north of Kabul, which he continues to control.
Defense minister under President Burhanuddin Rabbani's government, he was forced into the hills after the Taliban captured Kabul and ousted the Rabbani administration.
The Afghan embassy in Dushanbe represents the government-in-exile.
A familiar face internationally, always pictured wearing his trademark brown Afghan woolen hat, Masood was given a hero's reception during a landmark visit to France earlier this year to drum up support for the Afghan opposition.
In an interview with AFP in Khwaja Bahauddin in June, he voiced confidence that his forces would regain the initiative against the Taliban and voiced ambitions of leading his country one day.
"If it is to my country's benefit, this could happen," Masood said.
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