MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan – An explosion ripped through a market in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Thursday, wounding 100 people, hospital officials and witnesses said.
The blast occurred late Thursday afternoon. One of the wounded said he saw a fragmentation grenade roll into the moneychangers' section of the central market before the explosion.
The local health minister, Mirwais Rabde Sherzod, called the explosion a terrorist act.
"The people who did this meant to destroy the peace and tranquility of our city," Sherzod said.
A security guard in Mazar-e-Sharif's central hospital said more than 100 wounded had been registered, according to an Iranian television crew. Hospital officials said six people were seriously wounded.
Television footage showed several people lying in hospital cots with bandages around their legs and faces. Some of them were attached to intravenous drips.
Northern Alliance fighters, with the help of U.S. special forces and backed by heavy U.S. airstrikes, seized Mazar-e-Sharif from the Taliban last month. It was the first major Taliban-held city to fall in the Afghanistan fighting.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox