Al-Qaida blamed for warehouse blast

An explosion at a construction company that killed 25 people and destroyed dozens of homes was today believed to be the work of al-Qaida terrorists.

Up to 90 people were also reported injured in yesterday’s blast in Jalalabad.

Military officers at the scene said "a crater where a warehouse stood" suggested the explosion was the work of resurgent al-Qaida terrorists.

"It’s very obvious that it was an act of al-Qaida," Major Abdul Qayoom Azimi told a reporter.

"Nobody else can do such a thing. They want to disturb our people and normality."

But Mohammad Karim, a director of the firm, said he believed the blast was an accidental detonation of explosives stored at the warehouse for road-building projects.

He said the recent heat - more than 40C across much of Afghanistan - may have triggered the explosion, the Afghan Islamic Press agency said today.

The deputy governor of Jalalabad’s Nangarhar province, Mohammed Assef Qazi Zada, also offered a similar explanation.

Azimi said authorities had recently stationed extra security at the Doronta dam, 200yds from the construction warehouse, after receiving information that there would be an attempt to sabotage the power site.

He believed that terrorists had assembled explosives in the nearby building over time, and they were either deliberately or accidentally set off.

Another officer, Mohammad Sultan, commander in the affected district, said he believed an explosives-laden car was detonated in a basement garage of the building.

An investigation was under way, and company staff members were taken into custody for questioning.

Last night Nangarhar hospital was a scene of mayhem, as dozens of poor residents of the western Jalalabad district, many of them children, were treated for injuries.

Fifty-four of 90 patients received were admitted to the hospital, the others being treated and released, said hospital deputy director Dr. Gulojan Wadat Shinwari.

He said four workers of the construction company, the Afghan Construction and Logistics Unit, were among the injured.

Afghan Construction and Logistics Unit was founded as a non-governmental service organisation with US funding, but US support was withdrawn about a decade ago.

It has since continued operations as a private company fulfilling contracts from international organisations.

The fear of terrorism by Taliban or al-Qaida remnants runs high in Nangarhar province and much of the rest of Afghanistan eight months after a US-led military campaign brought down Afghanistan’s Taliban government and crippled its allies of the al-Qaida terror network.