At least 20 people were killed when a gunfight broke out at a wedding party in northern Afghanistan, officials said yesterday, highlighting the fragile security situation in the war-torn nation.
The clashes erupted late on Sunday in the Deh Salah District of Baghlan Province, a once-tranquil province that has recently been plagued by growing insecurity as a Taliban insurgency spreads north from its southern and eastern strongholds.
“As a result of the clashes, 20 people were killed and 10 others were wounded,” provincial police spokesman Jawed Basharat said.
Deh Salah District Police Chief Gulistan Qusani said the armed men traded verbal barbs before the gunfight broke out.
“A local security official fired in the air after the verbal exchange heated up ... and then both sides started trading fire,” Qusani said, giving a higher death toll of 21.
He added that the victims were all male guests at the wedding aged between 14 and 60.
Baghlan police spokesman Sultan Mohammad Ebadi said an official delegation had been sent to the area to investigate the matter.
Fatal gun fights and celebratory gunfire are woefully common at Afghan weddings, which have boomed in recent years in a nation battered by nearly 40 years of war.
Afghan soldiers mistakenly fired mortars at a wedding party in December last year in the southern Helmand Province, killing 17 women and children.
Some witnesses said the army attack was triggered when wedding guests shot celebratory gunfire into the air as the bride was brought to the groom’s house.
In July, 2012, a suicide bomber killed a prominent Afghan lawmaker and 16 other people at his daughter’s wedding party in the north of the nation.
In June, 2011, gunmen stormed a wedding reception in eastern Afghanistan, killing the groom and eight other people in an attack blamed on Taliban-linked insurgents.
The Afghan government conducted its first face-to-face talks with Taliban cadres on July 7 in a Pakistani hill station, aimed at ending nearly 14 years of war.
Afghan officials on Friday said they would meet insurgents this week for a second round of talks, pledging to press for a ceasefire in negotiations likely to be held in China.
However, despite the willingness to engage in talks, there has been no let-up in militant attacks, which are taking a heavy toll on civilians.
A suicide bomber on Wednesday last week killed 19 people, including women and children, in a crowded market in the northern Faryab Province, as insurgents intensify their annual summer offensive launched in late April.
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