Afghan shrines hit, dozens dead

A suicide attack killed dozens of Shi’ite Muslims at a crowded Kabul shrine on Tuesday, and four others died in a smaller blast in a key northern city, in Afghanistan.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks in Kabul and northern Mazar-i-Sharif. The Taliban strongly condemned the bombings and blamed invader enemies.
Bodies and blood were scattered down a street in the heart of old Kabul where a crowd of hundreds had gathered to mark the festival of Ashura, with chanting, and self-flagellation. At least 55 were killed and 160 wounded, some critically.
Outside a Kabul hospital, mourners cried near a pile of bloody clothes and shoes. A woman in a dark headscarf clutching a bloodstained sports shoe said her son, in his early 20s, had died. “They killed my son … this is his shoe,” she wailed.
Shortly after the Kabul blast, a bicycle bomb exploded near the main mosque in northern Mazar-i-Sharif city, killing four, injuring 17 others, and sparking a fight at a university mosque where Shi’ites and Sunnis were both praying.
“Enemies wanted to target the Muslim precession attending prayer, but because of tight security they failed,” the city’s senior police detective Abdul Raoof Taj, told Reuters.
Four people were injured in the mosque scuffle, which broke out when worshippers began arguing about the blast.
Police later defused a mine, found near the site of the explosion and likely intended to target rescuers and security forces attending to victims of the bomb.
A motorbike bomb also appeared to be aimed at Shi’ite worshippers in southern Kandahar city.
It exploded prematurely, injuring two policemen and three civilians, but causing no deaths.
“We cannot say for certain who the bomber’s target was, but it was probably the Ashura (ceremonies),” said Kandahar police chief Abdul Raziq.
“We have 100 per cent security. The enemies cannot enter the prayer sites. With such actions they want to show they exist.”
The Shi’ite Muslim festival of Ashura marks the martyrdom of the Prophet Mohammad’s grandson Hussein in the battle of Karbala in Iraq in the year 680.

Source: World Bulletin