Investigators searched yesterday for the cause of a huge explosion at a warlord's secret underground arms cache in Afghanistan as officials said the death toll had risen to 29, as villagers searched for more survivors and buried their dead.
More than 70 others were injured by the blast on Monday morning which wiped out a whole neighborhood in Bachgah, a small village in Baghlan province some 180km north of the capital Kabul.
President Hamid Karzai said he was saddened by the incident, one of the deadliest since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, and ordered an investigation.
But the local commander defended himself yesterday, saying a stock of explosives destined for a road project had unexpectedly ignited, and that he was in the process of handing over his last weapons to the government.
The blast flattened half a dozen homes and damaged a mosque.
Residents were still picking body parts from the debris yesterday and searching for other bodies as stony-faced relatives buried the body of a two-year-old girl called Wahida.
Two small feet with red-painted nails protruded from a shroud of raw cotton as several men lowered her into the damp earth next to 23 other fresh graves, each marked with a stone.
Wahida's father, who was among the dozens injured in the explosion, was being treated at the province's only hospital.
Some residents seethed against warlord Jalal Bashgah, who was in a nearby town at the time of the blast, and arrived in the village yesterday morning to inspect the aftermath.
"Why did he have to keep explosives and ammunition in his house, which was so close to everyone else?" said one man. "He is responsible for a very bad thing."
Bashgah's immediate family also lived elsewhere, but the family of his two brothers living in his compound were mostly killed.
Bashgah said there were 85kg of explosives and three crates of gunpowder in the basement for use improving the rough road along the valley.
In other developments yesterday, the US military installed a new commander of its forces in the country.
Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry took charge from outgoing fellow three-star David Barno at a ceremony at the US military headquarters in Kabul.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS