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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, December 07, 2003

18 injured in Kandahar affluent area explosion

At least 18 people were injured and many houses damaged Saturday in an explosion in an affluent area of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, a police official said.


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At least 18 people were injured and many houses damaged Saturday in an explosion in an affluent area of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, a police official said.

The huge explosion occurred at around 12:45 p.m. local time in downtown Kandahar's Chocke-Shchidan district, where foreign visitors used to stay in many of the guest houses there.

"About 18 people wounded in the explosion have been sent to hospital," Kabul police chief Mohammad Hashim said, adding that two of them were in critical condition.

The official earlier blamed the attack on the ousted Taliban movement, which has stepped up guerrilla attacks against government targets, foreign troops and even aid workers in the country since earlier this year.

"It was done by the Taliban and their supporters," Hashim told reporters soon after the explosion.

Many houses and shops were badly damaged in the explosion, which was caused by an explosive device bound onto a bicycle, the police chief said.

The explosion happened in the same area where two US soldiers were injured, one seriously, on Wednesday when a renegade Afghan policeman threw a hand grenade at their vehicle on a street.

The explosion took place just days before a scheduled constitutional Loya Jirga, or grand assembly, in the Afghan capital here, as more than 500 delegates from across the country are expected to discuss and ratify the country's new constitution next week.

A spokesman of the Taliban movement earlier reportedly issued death threats to Loya Jirga delegates, saying that the event would be a drama staged by the United States, who currently have over 8,000 troops in Afghanistan.


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