Afghan Opposition Leader Hurt in Blast

Opposition leader and former defense chief Ahmed Shah Massoud was injured and his close aide was killed Sunday in an explosion in northern Afghanistan, an opposition spokesman said.

Two men from Algeria posing as journalists are suspected of hiding the explosive device in their camera, spokesman Hajji Kahar said in a satellite telephone interview from Khodja Bahauddin in northern Takhar province, where the explosion occurred.

Massoud suffered leg injuries, said Mehrab Mastan, his ambassador in Paris. One of his spokesmen, Azim Suhail, was killed. Massoud went to Tajikistan after the explosion, Kahar said.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the two men with the camera--suspected suicide bombers--were killed. “There was a lot of noise and smoke,” Kahar said.

There was no immediate comment on the explosion from Afghanistan’s Taliban militia, which rules most of the country and is fighting Massoud’s forces in the north.

Massoud heads an alliance of small parties, largely formed along ethnic lines. He has repeatedly accused the Taliban of using foreign warriors, particularly from Arab countries and neighboring Pakistan, on the battlefield.