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19 killed in afghan mosque { June 1 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://nytimes.com/2005/06/01/international/asia/01cnd-afghan.htmlhttp://nytimes.com/2005/06/01/international/asia/01cnd-afghan.html
June 1, 2005
19 Killed in Bombing at Afghan Mosque
By CARLOTTA GALL
KABUL, Afghanistan, June 1 - A suicide bomber detonated a powerful explosion during a mourning ceremony in a mosque in Kandahar today, killing 19 people, among them the Kabul police chief, and wounding 52 in one of the bloodiest attacks in Afghanistan in three and a half years, Interior Minister Ali Ahmed Jalali said.
The attack served as a double blow for the people of Kandahar and the Afghan government, occurring during a ceremony marking the third day of mourning for an eminent religious cleric, Maulavi Abdul Fayaz. He was assassinated on Sunday by gunmen who fired into his office from the street and fled. The Taliban later took credit for that killing.
The slain police chief, Gen. Muhammad Akram Khakrezwal, who had recently been appointed to his post, and a number of his bodyguards were among the mourners who had packed the mosque this morning for a service for Maulavi Abdul Fayaz.
Mr. Jalali said he believed the two attacks were linked, and he blamed "enemies of Afghanistan" and "enemies of Islam." The bomber was a foreigner, Mr. Jalali said without elaborating. "We label them as enemies of Islam because they are attacking Islam, attacking Muslims, attacking sacred sites of Islam," he told a news conference in the Afghan capital.
The explosion in the Abdul Rab Akhunzada mosque, in a busy part of the city in southern Afghanistan, left bodies strewn across the forecourt of the mosque and the ground soaked in blood.
Maulavi Muhammad Haq Khatib, deputy to Maulavi Fayaz, the assassinated cleric, said he was inside the mosque when the blast occurred. He said the police chief had just finished saying prayers and was moving toward the exit when the bomber approached him as if to help him retrieve his shoes, and then set off his explosives. Some of his religious students had seen the man, he said.
"I came out and there were bodies everywhere," he said. "My head and ears are hurting, and my feet are cut from the broken glass."
Maulavi Khatib was also in the room with Maulavi Fayaz when he was slain on Sunday. "The people are very sad, all over the town, you can feel it, they are shocked and sad," he said. "Lots of people went to the Chinese hospital to give blood. It is a sign of how they sad they feel."
Fourteen people died on the spot today and five more in hospital, Mr. Jalali said. It was not clear if the bomber was included in the figures. Fifty-two people were wounded and 32 remained hospitalized, he said.
The governor of Kandahar, Gul Agha Shirzai, told reporters that the suicide bomber's body had been found and that he was a member of Al Qaeda, the network led by Osama bin Laden, a Saudi, who had been given refuge by the Taliban in Afghanistan until their ouster in late 2001 by American and allied forces.
"The attacker was a member of Al Qaeda. We have found documents on his body that show he was an Arab," Mr. Shirzai said at a news conference, The Associated Press reported. Witnesses said that the man had been dressed in a police uniform.
In a statement issued from the presidential palace in Kabul, the capital, President Hamid Karzai called the bomb attack an "act of cowardice by the enemies of Islam and the enemies of the peace of Afghan people."
"Afghanistan is passing through a sensitive period in its history, and with the parliamentary elections getting closer, the enemies attempt to sabotage the process," President Karzai said, calling on Afghans to be vigilant and not to "allow foreigners to conspire against their national security."
The United Nations mission in Afghanistan also expressed shock and outrage at the attack. "The people of Afghanistan will see in this brutal attack further reason to rally against all forms of violence and their perpetrators," it said in a statement.
The bombing came amid a sharp surge in violence across the country, with increased insurgent activity in the mountains and border areas, bomb attacks in the cities, including one in the capital on Monday, and deadly assaults on aid agencies and contractors working in rural areas.
Three members of a mine-clearing organization were killed today in a roadside explosion in the town of Gereshk, 80 miles west of Kandahar. On May 18, five workers for an American contractor, Chemonics, were killed in Helmand Province, causing the group to suspend employment of 14,000 people working in its programs in southern Afghanistan.
Afghan and American military officials have warned in recent weeks that in addition to increasing attacks against American and Afghan forces by insurgents, the Taliban and its Qaeda backers would be seeking to mount bomb attacks in cities, particularly the capital, to show that they were still an operational force.
Mr. Jalali said the perpetrators of the attack in Kandahar did not have the support of the people and so were resorting to terror attacks, and hiring a foreigner to carry out today's bombing. He said it was a "wake-up call" for Afghanistan as it sought to establish peace and security. And he called on the Afghan people to know their enemies and to join hands with the police to fight "those who are living in the darkness and basements of foreign countries and sending their people for destruction of Afghanistan."
A Taliban spokesman, Abdul Latif Hakimi, took responsibility for the assassination of Maulavi Fayaz on Sunday, saying it was retaliation for his support for the American military presence in Afghanistan and the government of President Karzai. But he denied responsibility for today's blast in the mosque, The A.P. reported.
In an effort to ease tensions in the southern regions where the Taliban is active, the American military released 52 prisoners today from detention facilities at the Bagram air base and one from the Kandahar air base, the second of planned monthly releases of detainees in coordination with the government.
About 500 men are still being held on the American bases, and calls for their release have been growing around the country. Many have been detained without charge for up to two years. The Afghan government is hoping to arrange the release of 50 to 60 detainees a month in advance of parliamentary elections in September, a government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A prominent religious leader and head of the peace commission that arranged the prisoner release, Sebaghatullah Mojadeddi, congratulated the men on their freedom, but said the day was marred by the bomb attack on the Kandahar mosque.
"Fifty years I have been studying Islam and I did not see anything in Islamic rules to kill innocent people in this kind of place," he told the assembled prisoners. He said committing suicide, and killing people in a mosque were against Islam, and he blamed Afghanistan's neighbors and extremist clerics for ordering people to do such things. "This is against Islam, against humanity and against Afghans," he said.
Among those released were a former commander, Turan Amanullah, 60, from Maidanshah, southwest of Kabul, together with a man who was a guest in his house the night he was arrested. Both had been held for 15 months. Two businessmen from Kandahar, who had been held for nearly two years, were also among those freed. All the men were released without charge.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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