Xinhua06/05/2000By [Printer Friendly Version]
Kabul - An explosion on Saturday mourning jolted Afghanistan's Interior Ministry and created panic among those in the nearby. Ruling out the possibility of sabotage in the incident, authorities described it as an accident caused by mistakes at an ammunition depot of the ministry.
"It was not a bomb. It was an explosion caused by fuse detonation at an ammunition depot at 10 o'clock this morning," the Interior Ministry's spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told Xinhua.
The depot, according to him, contains arms and ammunition collected by police from irresponsible persons in the past.
"No one was injured and no office was damaged due to the explosion," he stressed.
Meanwhile, Karim Khan, a passer-by, said the explosion was so strong that all the people in the nearby were terrified and took refuge behind the walls in the area.
It was the first time that such incident had taken place inside a heavily guarded government compound in downtown capital amid increasing insurgency in the south and southeast Afghanistan.
Remnants of Taliban and their allies al-Qaeda have threatened to disrupt the upcoming elections slated for September and evict the US-led troops by Jihad or holy war from Afghanistan.