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Australian journalists caught in suicide blast

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AN Australian journalist has been injured and another badly shaken in a suicide bombing that killed at least 15 people in Afghanistan.

Sydney-based freelance photographer Stephen Dupont, 41, and his colleague, Paul Rafael, were in a car about 20m from the blast which tore through through a team in the small town of Khogyani who were preparing to eradicate opium poppy fields in eastern Afghanistan.

It is believed Mr Rafael was airlifted to the air base hospital at Jalabad after the blast.

Mr Dupont, a winner at last year`s Walkley Awards, was not physically injured, but badly shaken by the blast, he told friend and journalist Sophie Berry in Afghanistan.

"Steve called me straight after the bomb went off," Ms Berry said. "He was fine, absolutely fine. He was shaken."

A man claiming to be a Taliban commander for the region named Qari Sajad told an AFP reporter by telephone the suicide bombing was carried out by a Taliban militant.

Afghanistan`s interior ministry said 19 people - 12 police and seven civilians - were killed and 41 others were wounded.

Witnesses said the blast left the area covered in flesh and blood.

"Locals were sitting on the ground as the district authorities, district police chief, district governor and others were talking to them, saying they should not grow opium,`` said the witness, who would not give his name.

"I saw a young boy who was carrying white papers wandering around the crowd, pretending he was applying for something at the district headquarters.

"All of a sudden I saw a big, red flame from among the crowd where the boy was standing and a big explosion followed."

A cloud of black smoke cleared to reveal the dead and injured, said the witness, who said he had brought wounded friends to hospital in Jalalabad, about 25km away.

"People were running and some were screaming. I don`t remember much. My head is spinning... I don`t know how I drove all the way up here," he said.

In a statement condemning the bombing, the United Nations mission noted "the circumstances of this attack illustrate the unmistakable bonds of partnership between terrorists and drug traffickers".

Afghanistan produces more than 90 per cent of the world`s opium and officials say the lucrative trade is in part funding an insurgency led by the Taliban and involving a range of militants.

Mr Dupont was more than a week into a three-week stint in Afghanistan where he was working on a lengthy project investigating the Afghani drug trade, New York-based Contact Press Images spokesman Robert Pledge said.

The US-funded project is working toward the release of a book and exhibition next year.

Mr Dupont`s website says he is a self-taught photographer, "drawn toward places of conflict and with an eye for compassion, he likes to capture both moments of beauty and devastation in life".

It is understood he lives in Sydney with his wife and young daughter.

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