4, April 2005	Monday	24 Safar 1426

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KABUL, April 3: An Afghan national died in a bomb explosion near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, while another blast in eastern Afghanistan caused no casualties on Sunday, officials said.

The deadly attack in south-eastern Kandahar’s Spin Boldak, a town near the Pakistan border, killed a civilian when a bomb planted near a truck stop exploded, said Mohammad Zaman Salangi, a spokesman for Kandahar’s police.

No other details were available but the blast came two days after Taliban insurgents killed three truckers, two of them Pakistani.

The drivers were supplying fuel for the US-led military who are stationed in Afghanistan to hunt down remnants of the Taliban, who have stepped up attacks in recent weeks.

Mr Salangi was unable to say who carried out Sunday’s attack, but said the device was detonated by remote control, similar to Taliban bombs used to attack US and Afghan forces in the past.

Another explosion rocked the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad on Sunday but there were no reports of any casualties, Nangarhar provincial spokesman Abdul Wakil Atak told newsmen by telephone. “There was an explosion near a government office in Jalalabad, but there were no casualties,” he said.

Mr Atak said it was not known what caused the explosion, saying it could have been an old mine or unexploded ordnance.

—AFP