A suicide bomber struck a Sunni mosque on Friday in northeastern Afghanistan, killing four people, just days after a deadly attack targeted Shiites in a rare sectarian attack in the capital.
An Islamic extremist group in Pakistan has claimed responsibility for the Kabul attack, raising already sharp tensions between the two neighboring countries.
Friday’s bomber blew himself up at about 2pm outside a Sunni mosque in the Ghazi Abad district of Kunar Province, a hotbed of the insurgency in the east where the US-led military coalition has shifted its focus after working to rout the Taliban from their strongholds in the south.
Insurgents regularly cross the porous border from Pakistan to conduct attacks in Afghanistan.
The blast occurred on the last day of Ashoura, a Shiite festival marking the seventh-century death of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson, but most of the congregation is Sunni and the targets appeared to be police and government officials.
Those killed included the district police chief, his bodyguard, an employee of the Afghan intelligence service and a civilian, said General Ewaz Mohammad Naziri, the provincial police chief. Five other people were wounded in the blast, he said.
“It was a brutal act against Afghan Muslims inside a mosque,” he said. “They had gathered for prayers and he entered and blew himself up.”
Mosques have frequently been attacked in Afghanistan and suicide bombings have become more common as insurgents shift tactics to destabilize the country and erode confidence in the government and security forces as US-led forces prepare to withdraw by 2014.
The bombing against a Shiite shrine on Tuesday was different because it was aimed at Shiites gathered to commemorate Ashoura. At least 56 people were killed and more than 160 wounded in the first major sectarian attack in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime a decade ago.
More than 2,000 people converged under tight security in a field west of Kabul to mark the last day of Ashoura and voice opposition to militant and terrorist groups that they say have been given sanctuary in Pakistan. Enlarged photographs of the victims were hung at the site.
Mohammed Mohaqeq, a Shiite leader in the Hazara ethnic minority, said the international community must help prevent militant groups based in Pakistan from attacking sites in Afghanistan. He also called for those responsible for Tuesday’s deadly bombing to be prosecuted by the international courts.
Former Afghan president Sibghatullah Mojaddedi placed direct blame on the Pakistan intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI.
“Don’t say it’s foreign intervention, say it is Pakistan and the ISI. All of us know it,” Mojaddedi said. “The ISI is recruiting terrorists, coming across the borders into Afghanistan and doing suicide bombings. God will get revenge.”
A man claiming to be from Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami, a Pakistan-based splinter group of Lashkar--e-Jhangvi, which has carried out attacks against Shiite Muslims in Pakistan, called various media outlets to claim responsibility for the Kabul bombing and a nearly simultaneous attack that killed four Shiites in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
However, Pakistani military spokesman General Athar Abbas has dismissed any suggestions that Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has links to the country’s intelligence agencies.
Abdullah Abdullah, a top -opposition leader, said Afghans must unite to fend off those trying to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a vibrant, independent nation.
“The future of Afghanistan is at stake,” he said.
Separately, in the south, a joint Afghan and NATO coalition force destroyed nine roadside bombs found while patrolling on Friday in the Maiwand district of Kandahar Province, the coalition said.
Another joint patrol in the same district uncovered nearly 700kg of marijuana seeds, the coalition said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in