Rare Attacks on Shiites Kill Scores in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan - At least 58 people were killed and dozens injured after hitting bombers Shiite religious observances Tuesday in three cities, among the crowds of faithful detonate explosives in the first of these sectarian attacks in a decade of war Afghanistan.

Two of these attacks - in Kabul, where dozens have died, and the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, where four were killed - were carried out by suicide bombers on foot. A third attack in the southern city of Kandahar, used a bomb hidden on a motorcycle parked, but no one was killed.

Ghulam Sakhi Kargar, the spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Public Health, said 54 people were killed in the bombing of Kabul and 164 injured and admitted to hospitals. General Abdul Zahair, the head of the Criminal Investigation Division Police Department in Kabul, the death toll to 56 in Kabul, with a similar number injured. The two officials said many injured were in a critical state for the number of dead could rise.

Shirjan Durani, the spokesman for the police chief in Mazar-i-Sharif, said the attack has killed at least four civilians and wounded 20 others, although he said that the intruders have not disrupt the Ashura holiday celebrations there because of heavy security.

The attack targeted a procession of Shiite Kandahar, but missed, wounding two policemen and three bystanders, according to the police chief, Abdul Razaq of Kandahar.

An e-mail to news organizations of the Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied responsibility. "We strongly condemn this savage and inhuman act by our enemies, who try to blame us and try to divide the Afghans by such attacks on Muslims."

All the recent suicide attacks in Afghanistan have been attributed to Taliban insurgents and allied groups like the Haqqani network and Al Qaeda. There was no known suicide attacks by the other parties to the conflict.

As the community of Afghanistan Shiite minority, mostly ethnic Hazaras, was brutally discriminated against during the years of Taliban rule, they were not chosen for the attack during the current uprising. Unlike in neighboring Pakistan, where sectarian violence is rampant between Shiites and Sunni groups, there was little conflict in Afghanistan for example.

Ashura is the day when Shiite Muslims honor the death of Imam Hussein, grand-son of the Prophet Muhammad. Although it has long been a holiday in Afghanistan, the ceremonies were more visible this year than in the past.

In Kabul, the bomber was apparently among a procession of worshipers outside a major Shiite mosques, the Fazal Abul Abbas shrine in the district of Murad Khani, about finance and defense ministries, when he detonated a belt of explosives. The mosque was damaged by the explosion.

The faithful beat their chest to show their sorrow for the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, with some of them were also flogging, using strings of barbed wire to fight on the back.

"The explosion took place inside the crowd," said a wounded man, Zaki Said, 18, whose face and clothes were covered with blood. "We did not see who that person was, but it was definitely up. We have seen 30 or 40 people on the ground are missing arms and limbs."

The deadly attacks followed an international conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, Germany, on Monday, which was considered a milestone that would cement progress in the war ends, both politically and militarily. But the conference has fallen considerably short of the targets that officials had expected, highlighting the many challenges facing a government riddled with corruption and threatened by a stubborn insurgency.

Article Source:- http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/world/asia/suicide-bombers-attack-shiite-worshipers-in-afghanistan.html

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