5 injured in east Afghanistan blast
Fri Jan 20, 2012 8:30AM
LAST UPDATE
File photo shows a member of the NATO-led forces patrolling near the airbase in the city of Jalalabad in Afghanistan's eastern province of Nangarhar.
At least five people have been injured after an explosion happened close to an airbase run by the Western military alliance of NATO in Afghanistan's eastern province of Nangarhar.
An oil tanker exploded some 100 meter away from the gate of the base in Jalalabad city -- the capital of the province, which is located some 120 kilometers (74 miles) east of the country's capital Kabul -- on Friday morning, said a local official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The attack came a day after at least seven people were killed and eight others wounded, when a bomber attacked Kandahar International Airport in the troubled south. Women and children were among the casualties.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
Despite the presence of tens of thousands of Western forces in Afghanistan, the United Nations and other groups say the violence has peaked and is now at its highest level since the US-led troops toppled the Taliban in late 2001.
A UN report on Afghanistan issued on September 28, 2011, said the average monthly number of security incidents recorded for the year through the end of August rose nearly 40 percent compared to the same time span in the previous year.
The report also said civilian casualties, already at record levels in the first six months of the year, rose 5 percent between June and August 2011 compared with the same three-month-long period in 2010.
Around 130,000 Afghans were displaced by the violence in the first seven months of 2011, up nearly two-thirds from the same period a year earlier.
MP/HN
