June 2, 2002	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 20,1423

KABUL, June 1: A bomb exploded outside the provincial governor’s office in Kandahar on Saturday, but there were no casualties or damage, a foreign ministry spokesman said.

Spokesman Omar Samad said Governor Gul Agha Sherzai was not in the office at the time of the explosion. There were no immediate claims of responsibilty for the blast, the second such attack on Sherzai in recent months.

Samad held remnants of the Taliban responsible.

“The Taliban and Al Qaeda, along with their foreign backers, are behind it,” Samad told Reuters.

Samad linked the blast to the election of delegates for a Loya Jirga, or grand assembly, that will meet in Kabul later this month to pick a transitional administration to succeed the government of interim leader Hamid Karzai.

“The incident is an act aimed at disrupting the Loya Jirga,” he said.

Under tight security, around 1,500 delegates from hundreds of Afghan districts are due to meet from June 10 to 16 to debate the type of government and who should lead it.—Reuters