Explosion rips through market in Mazar-e-Sharif

An explosion ripped through a market in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif today, wounding 100 people, six of them seriously, according to hospital officials.

One of the wounded said he had seen a 32-piece fragmentation grenade roll into the moneychangers’ section of the city’s central market before the explosion.

Local health minister Mirwais Rabde Sherzod called the explosion a terrorist act.

‘‘The people who did this meant to destroy the peace and tranquillity of our city,’’ Sherzod told reporters.

Mazar-e-Sharif, the largest city in the north with about 200,000 people, was the scene of some of the bloodiest conflict between the hard-line Taliban and the northern-based opposition.

The Taliban held the city briefly in 1997 until its forces were driven out. At least 2,000 Taliban were massacred following the loss of the city, including some who were thrown into wells and had hand grenades hurled in after them.

A year later, the Taliban recaptured the city and, according to human rights groups, massacred some 2,000 ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks and Shi’ite Muslims, apparently in retaliation for the earlier killings.

The United Nations said more than 100 Taliban fighters who attempted to take cover at a school in Mazar-e-Sharif were killed last month by northern alliance fighters who had seized the city.

There were no reports of suspects in today’s blast. It could have been caused by a Taliban supporter, or it might have been an accident involving the massive amounts of arms and munitions amassed in Afghanistan during decades of war.

A security guard in Mazar-e-Sharif’s central hospital said more than 100 wounded had been registered. Hospital officials said six people were seriously wounded.

Northern alliance fighters, with the help of heavy US airstrikes, seized Mazar-e-Sharif last month. It was the first major Taliban-held city to fall in the Afghanistan fighting.