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Updated 6.45pm
EXPLOSIONS ROCKED THE funeral of an Afghan politician’s son in Kabul, killing at least seven people and wounding dozens, in fresh carnage that spiked tensions in a city already on edge.
Witnesses reported three blasts at the burial site of Salim Ezadyar, who was among four people killed yesterday when an anti-government protest over spiralling insecurity in Kabul degenerated into street clashes with police.
The hilly, wind-swept cemetery was littered with bloodied corpses and dismembered limbs, local television footage showed, with one witness telling AFP that “people were blown to pieces” due to the impact of the blasts.
Health ministry spokesman Waheed Majroh told AFP:
So far seven dead bodies and 119 wounded people have been brought to Kabul hospitals.
The funeral of Salim Ezadyar, the son of an influential Afghan senator, was attended by senior government figures including Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah and Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, but they escaped unharmed.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, with the Taliban – the biggest insurgent group in Afghanistan – denying any involvement.
The fresh killings are likely to further polarise a city that has been on edge since a truck bombing on Wednesday in Kabul’s diplomatic quarter killed 90 people and wounded hundreds, in the deadliest attack on the Afghan capital since 2001.
President Ashraf Ghani urged restraint after the funeral bombings, saying: “The country is under attack. We must stay united.”
Wednesday’s assault highlighted the ability of militants to strike even in the capital’s most secure district, home to the presidential palace and foreign embassies that are enveloped in a maze of concrete blast walls. The government has blamed the Taliban-allied Haqqani Network for the attack.
Yesterday, the district centre again became a battlefield when hundreds of demonstrators incensed by the bombing clashed with police, prompting officials to beat them back with live rounds in the air, tear gas and water cannon.
City on lockdown
Police locked down much of Kabul city today, with armed checkpoints and armoured vehicles patrolling the streets to prevent a repeat of yesterday’s violence.
Before the blasts at the funeral, authorities had sealed off roads in the centre of the city, citing the threat of new attacks on large gatherings of people.
“We have intelligence reports that our enemies are trying again to carry out attacks on gatherings and demonstrations,” Kabul garrison commander Gul Nabi Ahmadzai said earlier today. “We hope that people will stay away from protests.”
But dozens of protesters still gathered under a tent close to the presidential palace calling for Ghani’s government to resign, but the assembly was largely peaceful.
“Any government attempt to disrupt our fair and just demonstration will show their complicity with terrorist groups and the perpetrators of Wednesday’s attack,” said Asif Ashna, a spokesman for the protesters.
It is the duty of the government to ensure security to the protesters… and the government will be held responsible for any violence.
The United Nations and a host of international allies have urged the protesters for restraint.
“The enemy seeks to manipulate the people’s anger and sadness to create division and sow instability,” the US embassy said in a statement.
“Now is the time to stand unified and announce to the enemies that Afghans… will not allow cowards to break the resolve to achieve a stable and peaceful nation. The enemies of Afghanistan cannot win. They will not win.”
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This doesn’t get half the coverage it should, just like the Philippines situation as well. Yet Manchester is plastered all over the news.
@Timmy: couldn’t have said it better.
@Timmy: Manchester is closer to home and a similar culture to ourselves, also a lot of Irish and people of Irish descent so people will obviously have more empathy but by and large people the world over think what’s happening in Kabul, and the Middle East in general is deplorable but less identifiable to us…..
@Timmy: Western events get more coverage by western media, there’s no malice in it.
Watch Al-Jezeera if you want more coverage on Middle Eastern events
@Timmy:
Funnily enough, if someone dies in a car crash in Ireland it gets reported here, but if someone dies in a car crash in the UK or France or elsewhere it doesn’t. Do you really need it explaining to you?
@Timmy: well what’s worrying is all of these incidents look to be connected. It’s amazing newspapers and tv are not giving a wider perceptive on world events. ISIS has a lot of dangerous people it can call on.
Don’t forget it’s a religion of peace.
@Stephen Moore: this has nothing to do with religion. Was only a few years ago similar savagery was being meted out just up the road, including hand grenades being thrown at funerals!
@Brendan Cooney: *funeral.
One guy did that. Once. And targets for some of the most grotesque atrocities of the troubles were selected on no basis other than their religion, eg: Shankill Butchers or Kingsmills massacre.
@Brendan Cooney: the west have been bombing and laying waste to country’ inhabited by Muslims for decades now, every faction fighting against one another in the Middle East are using arms and weapons supplied by western arms dealers trump is openly boasting about the jobs that are been created by the mayhem and destruction, Iran is the next country in the sights of America hence the latest massive arms deal to the cash cow of Saudi do you not think the west has any responsibility for destabilising these country’s?
@Dave Hogan: Totally agree with you Dave. Iran is next and it all about power and money. Saudi had been doing this your decades and using their warped version of religion to justify it all.
@Brendan Cooney: thank you Brendan.
@Stephen Moore: please look at the religion who has been most killed by terrorists. Muslim people to save you a short cut to your short sighted post. Can’t wait to blame all white Christian men for all the murder of women and all other young white males that we hear about on the news week in week out.
@Deborah Behan: If course more Muslims are killed by fellow Muslim terrorists. That’s simply due to location and the fact that they’ve driven out most non Muslims in the 49 Muslim nations.
Keep importing them into Europe by the millions and that may change.
So comments for this are open but someone farts at a Garda and they get closed.
Comments are getting very repetitive around here.
@A H: didn’t you say that before?
@Jay Orange:
Comments are getting very repetitive around here
Now bombing at a funeral. Savages.
Nobody cares cos it didn’t happen in the western world
@Mark Kenny: virtue Signalling
@Mark Kenny: do you think people in Afghanistan know or care about killings in the West? No
@Pat Mustard: you would think they would know as everyone in the West blamed them for the attacks……
I wonder how many have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001.
@Eoin Mulhern: As of August 2016, 104,000 deaths – including 31,000 civilian deaths. The Soviet War, deaths range from 500k to 2 million depending on the source.
@Honeybadger197: Yes but in the Soviet war the U.S. were arming and training the Afghans. In particular with RPG’ to take down Russian attack helicopters.
@gregory:
Klass, Rosanne (1994). The Widening Circle of Genocide. Transaction Publishers. p. 129. ISBN 9781412839655. ”an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Afghan civilians were killed by Soviet forces and their proxies”
@Honeybadger197: These were not battle casualties or the unavoidable civilian victims of warfare. Soviet and local Communist forces seldom attacked the scattered guerilla bands of the Afghan Resistance except, in a few strategic locales like the Panjsher valley. Instead they deliberately targeted the civilian population, primarily in the rural areas.
You should know by now that to many here on the Journal it’s always the big bad US, whilst Russia/Soviets can do no wrong….
Ah that is just horrendous. Why would anyone in their right mind bomb a funeral. There are some sickos in this forsaken world.
The problem is that many Afghans sympathies with the Taliban . The Taliban have support in government , police , military . President Karzai call the Taliban his brothers . The will to defeat and rid Afghanistan of the Taliban by the Afghan government and security forces doesn’t exist .
After american bombed the hell out of Afganistan they had no food left or shelter so pakistan start helping the Afgans by letting them into pakistan, after we done that Afganistan start doing sucide bombing in pakistan and now we want them All out. American are looking for trouble big bullies
After american bombed the hell out of Afganistan they had no food left or shelter so pakistan start helping the Afgans by letting them into pakistan, after we done that Afganistan start doing sucide bombing in pakistan and now we want them All out. American are looking for trouble big bullies
have your say