Posted on 06/01/2005 12:45:09 PM PDT by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
KANDAHAR - A suspected al-Qaida suicide bomber walked into a mosque during the funeral of a Muslim cleric and blew himself up Wednesday, killing 20 people, including Kabul's police chief, and wounding 42 others.
The attack was the deadliest in Afghanistan since a surge in violence began in March, casting doubt on U.S. claims that it is stabilizing the country and reinforcing fears that militants here are copying the tactics of those in Iraq.
Hundreds of mourners were crowded inside the mosque for the funeral of Mullah Abdul Fayaz in the main southern city of Kandahar when the bomber struck.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the assault as an "act of cowardice by the enemies of Islam and the enemies of the peace of Afghan people" and ordered a high-level investigation.
Parts of the bomber's body were found and Kandahar Gov. Gul Agha Sherzai said he belonged to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.
"The attacker was a member of al-Qaida. We have found documents on his body that show he was an Arab," Sherzai said. "We had an intelligence report that Arab al-Qaida teams had entered Afghanistan and had been planning terrorist attacks."
A purported Taliban spokesman, Mullah Latif Hakimi, said in a telephone call to The Associated Press that the rebels were not responsible for the bombing. Hakimi often calls news organizations, usually to claim responsibility for attacks on behalf of the former regime. His information has sometimes proven untrue or exaggerated, and his exact tie to the rebel leadership is not clear.
Among those killed Wednesday was Kabul police chief Gen. Akram Khakrezwal, two of his nephews and six of his bodyguards, Sherzai said. The attacker detonated the explosives after coming close to the police commander, but it was not clear if he was targeted, said Interior Ministry spokesman Latfullah Mashal.
Khakrezwal, a Karzai supporter, was police chief in the capital for two months. Prior to that, he had been police commander in a northern city and for Kandahar.
Many local leaders had been expected to attend the funeral of Fayaz, the top Muslim leader in the province.
Fayaz, also a supporter of Karzai, was shot to death in Kandahar on Sunday by suspected Taliban gunmen - a week after he led a call for people not to support the rebels.
Kandahar was a stronghold of the Taliban regime that was ousted from power in late 2001 by U.S.-led forces for harboring bin Laden.
Col. James Yonts, the U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, condemned the blast, calling it an "atrocious act of violence upon innocent civilians and a mosque."
While Sherzai put the casualty toll at 20 dead and 42 wounded, Kandahar Hospital director Mohammed Hashim Alokozai said 72 were injured, four gravely.
Deputy police chief Gen. Salim Khan said the explosion occurred near where people remove their shoes before praying.
"I was knocked unconscious by the blast. When I woke up, so many people were killed or wounded. People were running around, some were lying on the ground crying. Dead bodies were everywhere," said Nanai Agha, a mourner who was behind a wall in the mosque when the bomb exploded.
In a second attack Wednesday, a bomb exploded on a bridge west of Kandahar as a group of Afghan explosives experts working on a Japanese-funded demining project were driving over it, killing two of them and wounding five, said Patrick Fruchet, spokesman for the U.N. Mine Action Center for Afghanistan.
Although the insurgents have stepped up their offensive, they have also suffered heavy casualties, losing about 200 men since March, following a winter lull in the fighting, according to American and Afghan officials.
Tension has been high in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan after deadly anti-American riots sparked by a news report - later retracted - that interrogators at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, defiled the Quran.
So how many korans were burned in the blast?
It's about time that everyone in Iraq wears Speedo swim-trunks and nothing else, black for funerals!
Maybe former bouncer and Hillary pet, Craig Livingstone, is available for one of the spots.
Leni
First we had Saddaam in his BVD's, not you wanna see him in a Speedo!!! LOL!!
Be nice re Craig L -- he posts here sometimes.
(natural question, LOL).
Leni
And it's equally clear that life, made in the image of God, is not sacred to them either.
Such is their "sacred" ummah..
True Muslims strike again. Islam knows no limits to self-destructive behavior--as long as the dead can be traced to even a trace of non-Muslim flavor.
Little condemnatiuon from the Mosques, as usual, even tho they are targeted. What a joke.
"The attack was the deadliest in Afghanistan since a surge in violence began in March, casting doubt on U.S. claims that it is stabilizing the country"
This seems to be the angle of every press report of this atrocity today, how it makes the US look bad. Can't the media report ANYTHING about these terrorist animals and their heinous acts without somehow using it to paint Bush and the US in a negative light? As if Kerry and the Democrats could be doing so much better of a job at handling these terrorist scum. Their solution would be to ask the UN to level sanctions against them.
The fact is we were stablizing Afghanistan quite successfully, and will continue to do so, despite these animalistic attacks. A few vermin launching vain attacks hardly means the whole situation is a mess. And let's face it, how much of this is a result of the NEWSWEEK LIES ABOUT KORANS BEING FLUSHED??? Funny Afghanistan was quite stable and calm until Newsweek decided to slander the US and the military with a pack of lies. Many Taliban commanders were giving up and poppy production was plummeting. If Afghanistan is worsening (which is in doubt since the media LOVES to blow up ANY incident either in Iraq or Afghanistan as somehow being reflective of the entire nation's situation)then the MSM, particularly NewsWEAK is to thank for enflaming terrorists in Afghanistan with their lies.
They (al Qaida) will shoot themselves in the foot with these tactics. Eventually, ordinary Muslims are going to realise that al Qaida does not give a flying fatwa about them or the religion. The sooner they cop onto this fact, the better off we'll all be (fingers crossed)...
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