Kabul, Mar 15: A truck bomb packed with nearly eight tonnes of explosives was found in eastern part of Kabul and the explosive was defused, Afghan spy agency sources said.
Five al-Qaeda linked Haqqani network insurgents were killed in a resulting firefight.
“This truck bomb could have destroyed an area around 1.5 km (in radius). Now can you imagine that what kind of catastrophe this would be?,” Shafiqullah Tahiri, a spokesman for the National Directorate of Security, told a news conference.
It contained sodium chloride, ammonium nitrate, other chemicals and some diesel.
The truck bomb was discovered on Wednesday two days after US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel left the capital.
On the first full day of Hagel's visit, a suicide bomber struck about a kilometre away from his morning meetings at a NATO facility.
Two Haqqani operatives were arrested during the night raid, and Tahiri said the militants had been planning to target a military facility in the capital.
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