JALALABAD:- A small bomb exploded near the Indian consulate in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad Tuesday, authorities said, after a series of attacks on Indian installations in the region. The blast, which happened the morning after a gun and bomb siege near the Indian consulate in a northern Afghan city, was some 200 metres from the consulate in Jalalabad, an Indian diplomatic source there told AFP. The source and Afghan authorities said no one had been injured.–AFP
The explosion also follows a bloody weekend assault on an airbase in India near the Pakistan border. But Vikas Swarup, a spokesman for India’s ministry of external affairs, told AFP the Jalalabad consulate “was not the target”. The area also houses the consulates for Pakistan and Iran. Ataullah Khogyani, a spokesman for Nangarhar province’s governor, said authorities were unsure what the target was but a police convoy had been passing at the time. “The explosives were placed in a garbage can,” he added. The attack was not immediately claimed. Indian interests have been targeted twice since Saturday in spectacular assaults: an attack on its consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif, and a raid by insurgents on an air force base in the northern Indian state of Punjab. Seven soldiers were confirmed killed in the raid on the Pathankot base which was claimed by the United Jihad Council. ­­