KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, May 26, (Agencies): A car bomb exploded Wednesday outside a small NATO military base in southern Afghanistan’s largest city, wounding two Afghans and destroying several cars, police said.
It was the latest in a string of bold attacks on high-profile NATO targets in the past two weeks, following a Taleban announcement of a spring offensive against alliance and Afghan forces — their response to the Obama administration’s vow to squeeze the militants out of Kandahar province strongholds.
The blast occurred around 11:30 am in a parking lot used by Afghans visiting Camp Nathan Smith in Kandahar city, said Gen Shafiq Fazli, the police commander for southern Afghanistan. The base houses a few hundred Canadian soldiers, along with American military police and US and Canadian government employees working on development projects.
Fazli said no one was killed. A police officer said at least one security guard and one Afghan who works at the base were wounded. The officer gave only one name, Khalid.
Wednesday’s blast destroyed 11 cars that were parked in the lot, along with about 50 motorcycles and more than a dozen bicycles, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The bomb was placed in a Toyota Corolla in the lot, it said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
People reached by phone inside Camp Nathan Smith said they had been ordered into bunkers but that the area appeared quiet since the explosion. They spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the attack had not been released.
The string of attacks began on May 18, when a Taleban suicide bomber attacked a NATO convoy in the capital, killing 18 people including six NATO service members — five Americans and a Canadian.
The next day, dozens of Taleban militants attacked the main US military base, Bagram Air Field, killing an American contractor in fighting that lasted more than eight hours.
Then on Saturday, insurgents firing rockets, mortars and automatic weapons tried to storm Kandahar Air Field, NATO’s main base in the south. Kandahar Air Field is about 20 kilometers outside of the city, while Camp Nathan Smith is in downtown Kandahar.
In eastern Nuristan province, police have been battling hundreds of insurgents for four days, officials said. At least seven militants and one police officer have died so far in the fighting in Nuristan’s Barg-e-Matal district, the Interior Ministry said in statement.
The insurgents attacked the district government building on Sunday and a small police force has been trying to keep them at bay since then, said Gen Mohammad Qasim Jangulbagh, the provincial police chief.
“There are many fewer police than attackers but we have the locals helping us,” Jangulbagh said, explaining that villagers have grabbed their guns and joined the police in the fight. He said police have asked for reinforcements, but none has arrived yet.
Nuristan Gov Jamaludin Badar said they also have asked NATO forces for help.
Meanwhile, a dispute between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan has left hundreds of railway carriages with supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan stranded in Central Asia, a Tajik railway official told Reuters.
NATO uses Central Asia, an ex-Soviet Muslim region north of Afghanistan, to transport non-military cargo such as fuel and food to support its military operations against the Taliban.
The route has become particularly important as traditional supply lines through Pakistan came under increasingly fierce attack from Taliban insurgents.
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have long been at odds over cross-border water use, and Uzbekistan sometimes blocks trains from entering Tajikistan as a way of putting pressure on its neighbour.
“As of May 24, 2,500 carriages bound for Tajikistan are being held on the territory of the Uzbek railways,” Usmon Kalandarov, deputy head of Tajikistan’s state railway company, told Reuters late on Tuesday.
“Out of those carriages, more than 300 are NATO cargo for Afghanistan.”
A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Kabul confirmed the disruptions.

“We are aware there are some tensions in the area and that some carriages carrying NATO supplies are being held up,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Goetz Hasske.
“We don’t know anything about numbers but it is not affecting logistics in the area. We have several border crossing points that we can use and we may have to re-route some shipments. These are ongoing political tensions in the area.”
Once in Central Asia, trains bound for Afghanistan travel through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan before reaching northern Afghanistan.
Uzbekistan, Central Asia’s most populous country, is angry at impoverished Tajikistan’s plans to build a new hydroelectric power plant, Rogun, which Uzbekistan says would disrupt the flow of water it needs for irrigation.
Tajikistan, for its part, has accused Uzbekistan of blocking transit trains loaded with building materials in an attempt to put pressure on it and prevent Rogun’s construction.
Uzbekistan’s foreign ministry could not be reached for comment. Its governement denies any political motives behind holding up Tajik trains, saying delays were caused by technical problems.