June 30, 2004
KABUL (Reuters)
Two explosions killed one person and injured more than two dozen others in an eastern Afghan city Wednesday, while concern grew for an Australian journalist missing in the Taliban-troubled south.
Elsewhere, militants burned trucks supplying American troops and abducted their Afghan crews, and government forces killed three gunmen in a Taliban stronghold.
The explosions occurred a few minutes apart near security checkpoints in downtown Jalalabad, 80 miles east of the capital, Kabul, officials said.
Faizan, a spokesman for the provincial government who uses one name, said 27 people were wounded five police officers and 22 civilians. One man died later in hospital and four others were in critical condition.
"It's a very crowded area, and they were mainly shopkeepers and people just walking by," Faizan said.
Officials said the bombs were hidden in crates of fruit and shattered the windows of nearby homes and shops.
Faizan blamed "the enemies of the Afghan nation" a byword here for anti-government militants such as rebels of the ousted Taliban regime.
But Hamed Agha, who says he speaks for the hardline militia, said it was not involved. Agha blamed feuds among security officials in Nangarhar province, which is riven by tribal and factional animosities.
The blasts follow a bomb attack on a bus carrying women election workers in Jalalabad on Friday which killed two of them and wounded 13 others. A spokesman for the Taliban, who have vowed to disrupt the vote due in September, claimed that attack.
Officials were also trying to locate Carmela Barenowska, 35, a journalist working for Australian broadcaster SBS.
Cdr. Chris Henderson, a spokesman for NATO-led peacekeepers in Kabul, said they were working with Afghan authorities and the U.S. military to try to locate Barenowska after receiving a call from SBS.
Barenowska checked out of a hotel in the southern city of Kandahar on Sunday and left in a red sports-utility vehicle with an Afghan assistant and driver.
It was unclear where they were headed. Calls to her satellite telephone were unsuccessful Wednesday.
In Canberra, a spokeswoman for the Australian foreign ministry said her government also was trying to track Barenowska down. She said there was no evidence she had been kidnapped.
Abdul Hakim Latifi, another purported spokesman for the Taliban, said the militia was not holding her. "We don't have a problem with journalists," Latifi said. "Maybe some thief took her."
Khalid Pashtun, spokesman for Kandahar's governor, said Barenowska had not asked officials for advice on security beyond Kandahar city, which is patrolled by American troops.
"We're trying to find out about her, but right now we know nothing," Pashtun said.
In neighboring Uruzgan province, suspected Taliban stopped four trucks bound for an American base, burning them and abducting 12 people manning the vehicles, an official said.
The trucks, laden with food, were torched Tuesday afternoon in Uruzgan's Nesh district, said Khan Mohammed, a senior military commander in Kandahar.
Uruzgan Gov. Jan Mohammed Khan said hundreds of Afghan troops combing the province's Char Cheno district killed three Taliban fighters in a skirmish Tuesday.
Four people were arrested in a search of nearby villages which also turned up dozens of assault rifles and a cache of mines rigged for remote detonation, Khan said.
Associated Press Writers Noor Khan in Kandahar and Janullah Hashimzada in Peshawar, Pakistan contributed to this report.
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040630_792.html