Blast kills dozens in Afghanistan

BASHGAH, Afghanistan – The warlord piled up weapons and explosives in a hidden underground bunker in his remote village, his armory against Afghanistan’s decades of fighting, according to officials. In a flash, they were gone, along with a swath of the mountain hamlet and at least 26 lives.

Government officials said the devastating explosion of the armory Monday should be a warning for local leaders to rethink their reluctance to give up their guns to a U.N.-sponsored disarmament program.

“If they keep arms and explosives in their homes it will cause more tragedies, and innocent people will be the victims,” said Gen. Mohammed Zaher Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry. “It’s illegal, and we have to make sure this tragedy is never repeated.”

Villagers, however, disputed that it was a weapons cache, saying the explosives were to be used for road-building. They said the blast left 26 people dead and three others missing.

The blast appeared to be the deadliest accident of its kind since the ouster of the Taliban regime. And it highlighted the wide availability of weapons amassed during a quarter-century of fighting, first against occupying Soviet troops, then among Afghan factions and now in the insurgency that followed the ouster of the Taliban in late 2001 by a U.S.-led coalition.

Afghan and U.N. officials are trying to disarm militias but face an immense task in a nation where warlords still command local loyalties and remain wary of each other and the U.S.-backed central government.

The weapons and ammunition that exploded were in a bunker under a warlord’s house in Bashgah, a farming hamlet in the mountains of Baghlan province, 75 miles north of the capital, Kabul, authorities said. They said it was unclear what set off the explosion about 6 a.m. An Interior Ministry spokesman, Latfullah Mashal, said the cache was hidden by Jalal Bashgah, a former commander of a militia brigade, apparently to conceal it from the U.N. disarmament program.