Afghan Blast May Have Been Trap

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — An explosion at an ammunition depot near the Kandahar air base killed three U.S.-allied Afghan fighters Thursday, and the top Canadian officer here said one of the men may have inadvertently tripped a booby trap.

The explosion Thursday morning about a mile south of the air base sent shrapnel and other ordnance screaming over the heads of Canadian troops who had gone out to try to help. Detonations from the weapons depot continued into the evening and started a large brush fire, Lt. Col. Pat Stogran said.

Afghan forces said the men were moving a crate at the ammunition depot that they hoped to break down into firewood when they apparently tripped the booby trap, said Stogran, commander of the approximately 750 Canadian troops at the base.

Stogran said the threat of further detonations had prevented Canadian forces from approaching the facility, a known ammunition site used by allied Afghan forces.

"We came here expecting these sorts of incidents and certainly when we are handling caches of ammunition and such we are very wary of the possibility of booby traps," Stogran said. "It being their own cache of ammunition they were probably a lot more relaxed about it."

There have been a series of incidents at and around the base since Jan. 10, when gunmen opened fire on a plane carrying 20 al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Most recently, two U.S.-allied Afghan troops were killed March 1 when their convoy hit a land mine less than a mile from the base.

It wasn't clear whether the trap was one laid by the U.S. allies or their enemies. However, Stogran said coalition forces were aware that al-Qaida terrorists remained in the region after Kandahar fell. The city was the stronghold and birthplace of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime.

"We're quite sure there are al-Qaida operatives that have stayed behind in the area," Stogran said, and "there are other groups that are claiming to want to create hostilities within the interim administration, so it could be any one of a number of groups."

The fire spread quickly through the grass due to high winds and extremely dry conditions at the Kandahar base in drought-ravaged southern Afghanistan.

The base is home to 4,200 troops — including soldiers from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division, special forces, and men and women from other coalition member-countries.