Seven killed in explosion at Afghan weapons dump

A massive explosion at a weapons dump near an airfield in northern Afghanistan killed five Afghans and two German soldiers, officials said today.

The blast was believed to be an accident and occurred yesterday in northern Takhar province as some of the weapons were being moved before being destroyed, the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said in a statement.

Interior Ministry spokesman Latfullah Mashal said the five Afghans were working as porters carrying the arms to trucks.

A sixth Afghan was also wounded and along with an injured German were to be flown to Germany for treatment, said Maj. Joseph Bowman, an ISAF spokesman.

The German army confirmed that two soldiers who were initially classified as missing had died.

Remains of the two, who were not identified, were found today, it said.

A fourth German soldier was also wounded, but only lightly, according to a statement issued from the German division’s headquarters at Schwielowsee outside of Berlin. Some 2,250 German soldiers serve in the ISAF force.

President Hamid Karzai said he was “deeply saddened by this unfortunate incident.”

“The ISAF and the Afghan workers lost their lives in the service of Afghanistan, and the Afghan people remain grateful to them for their sacrifice,” he said in a statement. “I present my sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wish prompt recovery to the injured.”

The weapons were being stockpiled near the airfield in the town of Rustaq after being collected as part of a national programme to disarm militias. Afghanistan is awash with weapons after a quarter century of war and UN, US and NATO forces report the discovery of weapons caches almost daily.

Though a vast arsenal has been collected, officials estimate many thousands of tons of arms are still scattered across the country.

There have been a series of explosions at weapons dumps. Last month, a warlord’s stockpile of explosives dated from the Afghan resistance against occupying Soviet troops in the 1980s detonated accidentally, flattening a half dozen houses and a mosque and killing at least 26 people.