August 11, 2002	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Saani 1, 1423

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JALALABAD, Aug 10: Police investigating a huge warehouse explosion that killed at least 26 people on the outskirts of Jalalabad said on Saturday it was most likely an accident, although sabotage could not be ruled out.

Deputy Police Chief Abdul Safa Momand said six officials of the Afghan Construction and Logistics Unit, where Friday’s blast occurred, had been taken in for questioning, including the local head of the operation.

Momand said he had previously warned the ACLU of the need to take proper care of the explosives it used for road construction.

“The most likely reason is that they did not take care,” he said when asked about the possible cause of the explosion. He said a second possibility was that the blast was staged to cover up a fraud by destroying documents.

“A third possibility is that maybe Al Qaeda gave one of the people working in that organization money to do this,” Momand said. Before the fall of the Taliban at the end of last year, the outskirts of Jalalabad were dotted with training camps for the Al Qaeda network.

On Friday, the US military quoted initial reports from US officials here as saying a truck bomb caused the blast.

The Afghan defence ministry said on Friday it was unclear if it was caused by a truck bomb or the accidental detonation of explosives. Government investigator Mohammad Samir said at the scene on Saturday it was still too early to draw any conclusions.—Reuters