At Least 14 Killed in Blast in Eastern Afghan City: AIP
KABUL,
Aug 9 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - An explosion in eastern
Afghanistan which has left at least 14 people dead and 85 wounded
Friday, August 9, appeared to be the work of a suicide car-bomber, an
official said.
Local
commander Hazrat Ali told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that 14 people
had been killed and 85 wounded in the blast in a construction
organization’s explosives-packed warehouse, close to the main
eastern city of Jalalabad.
"It
looks like a suicide car bomb in the warehouse" of the Afghan
Construction and Logistics Unit (ACLU), Ali said.
He
added that some 50 houses had also been damaged by the force of the
blast.
The
explosion went off near the Darunta dam just to the west of the city
at 1230 (0800 GMT) Friday, he said.
"It
appeared the goal was to destroy the electricity dam," Ali said.
The
Afghan Islamic Press earlier put the death toll at 20, citing its
correspondent in Darunta who saw 20 bodies pulled from the rubble by
rescue workers.
But
Mohammad Asif Qaimzada, the deputy governor of Nangarhar province, of
which Jalalabad is the capital, said "more than 40" people
were killed, AIP reported.
He
told AIP the blast may have been caused by explosives stored in the
ACLU office.
"There
is no possibility of any act of terrorism, it was caused by explosive
material in the store (of ACLU) which it uses in its road construction
projects," he said.
ACLU's
project manager in Kabul, who is named Engineer Mohammad Arouf, said
local staff had been engaged on a scheme to build a bridge in the
area.
He
told AFP that 16 Afghan staff were working in ACLU's offices in
Jalalabad.
It
was not known how many staff would have been based at the nearby
warehouse.
Rescue
workers were pulling bodies from the rubble and transporting the
injured to two local hospitals including the state-run Sehat-e-Aama
Hospital, AIP said.
ACLU
stores explosives for use in construction work in Afghanistan, where
it has been operating for several years, AIP said.
Students
at a nearby university were among the injured. The force of the blast
shattered the campus' windows and damaged several adjacent houses, AIP
said.
Jalalabad
was the stronghold of slain Afghan vice president Haji Qadir, who was
gunned down by still-unidentified assassins in a brazen daylight
attack as he left his office in the capital Kabul on July 6.
In
April defense minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim escaped unharmed after
bombers launched an assassination attempt as he was driving to Qadir's
headquarters in the center of Jalalabad.
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