Afghan explosion kills 26 and heightens terror fears

An explosion in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad killed at least 26 people and injured up to 80 yesterday.

The blast at a construction camp set several buildings on fire and damaged more than 50 homes, some as far as 500 yards away. It also disrupted the city's electricity network and the power supply for a nearby dam.

"The latest [toll] we have is said to be 26 dead and 80 wounded," a Defence Ministry spokesman said. At least 25 of the wounded had severe injuries and many were not expected to survive.

Hazrat Ali, the regional military commander, said the blast appeared to have been caused by a car bomb. But Dr Mohammed Assef Qazi Zada, the deputy governor of Nangarhar province, said the more likely explanation was that it had been caused by industrial explosives. Three employees of the Afghan Construction and Logistics Unit, which ran the site where the blast happened, were arrested and questioned. Officials refused to say whether the three were being treated as Taliban or al-Qa'ida members or sympathisers.

The speculation that an attack had taken place was fuelled because the blast followed several violent incidents, including the assassination of Haji Abdul Qadir, a vice- president and former governor of Nangarhar; the arrest of an alleged car bomber in Kabul, and a battle between Afghan security forces and former al- Qa'ida prisoners in which more than dozen men were killed.

The logistics unit was set up as a non-government organisation with US funding for infrastructure construction. The funding was withdrawn during the Taliban years, and it now operates as a commercial concern with contracts from international aid organisations. The founder of the organisation, Engineer Karim, was jailed by the Taliban regime because he refused to have Taliban members on the board.

Nangarhar has become one of the crisis points in post-Taliban Afghanistan. A number of senior Taliban and al-Qa'ida fighters are suspected of hiding in the Pashtun-dominated province bordering Pakistan.

Nangarhar is also one of the main opium producing areas in the country as well as being a conduit for goods smuggled from Pakistan.

The Afghan government has been trying to eradicate opium in the area, sometimes helped by American and British special forces. The destruction of the poppy harvest has caused widespread local anger and some of the violence is blamed on warlords who profited from the trade.

Commander Ali said: "It was a tremendous explosion. We have taken three people into custody and we are questioning them."

Rashid Abdul Agha, a local resident, said: "The deep suspicion here is that this was a bomb. Jalalabad is a dangerous place and a lot of people have a lot of reasons to carry out disruption here.

"Most people here are convinced that the Taliban are just waiting to carry out attacks, and al-Qa'ida will come over across the Pakistani border."