Afghan man finds 500-kilogram Soviet bomb in garden, police say

By AFP 13 August 2026, 4:56 pm

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Soviet soldiers going home with their tank regiment saluted a parade stand as a partial withdrawal of Moscow?s troops in Afghanistan began in Shindand, Afghanistan, October 17, 1986. (AP Photo/Carol J. Williams)

An unexploded Soviet-era bomb weighing 500 kilograms (around 1,100 pounds) was discovered yesterday in a private garden in eastern Afghanistan, police say.

More than 45,000 Afghans have been killed or injured by explosive remnants of war and mines since Soviet troops withdrew in 1989, according to the United Nations Mine Action Service.

On Wednesday, a resident found “a suspicious object in the garden area inside the yard of his house,” says Khalid Sarhadi, police spokesperson in Ghazni province.

The security forces and a demining team from the Danish Refugee Council went to the home in Sir village, Sarhadi tells AFP.

“A 500-kilogram bomb from the Soviet era was discovered, transferred to a mountainous area, and detonated safely,” the police spokesperson adds.

Soviet troops pulled out from Afghanistan after a nearly decade-long occupation, but successive wars followed.

Despite unexploded ordnance remaining across the country, the number of teams deployed to tackle the problem has been slashed by 64 percent over the past two years, Nick Pond, head of the Mine Action Section of the UN mission in Afghanistan, told AFP in June.