KABUL — The Afghan government banned a fertilizer chemical Friday that was used in the devastating Oklahoma City bombing and in most of the homemade explosives that have killed and maimed hundreds of American soldiers here.
NATO troops have seized tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in raids over the past five months in southern Afghanistan, and the government has been discouraging farmers from using it for years for environmental reasons.
Still, the government thinks the ban will make it more difficult for the Taliban to replenish supplies of ammonium nitrate, which the U.S. think tank says has been used in more than 90 percent of the homemade bombs, the biggest killer of NATO troops in Afghanistan.
NATO announced Friday that another service member was killed in a blast Friday in southern Afghanistan but did not release the victim’s nationality.
President Hamid Karzai issued the decree banning the use, production, storage, purchase or sale of ammonium nitrate on the recommendation of Afghan intelligence services and the ministries of agriculture and interior, according to a government statement.
A number of countries, including Germany, and China, have banned ammonium nitrate fertilizer, and most U.S. states regulate its use.
