Afghan Shiites under attack as IS seeks to stir up sectarian violence
KABUL: The massacre at a Kabul mosque last week highlighted the vulnerability of the country’s Shiite minority, increasingly the target of the Sunni Islamic State group that is trying to stir up sectarian violence.
Victims of last Friday’s suicide blast inside the Imam Zaman prayer hall told AFP they saw the bomber but no sign of security checks, despite the government’s promise to beef up protection of Shiite mosques.
Dozens of men, women and children died in the explosion, just the latest in a series of attacks that have killed more than 200 Shiites in the past year.
“There were no body checks that day,” Ali Gul told AFP at his home in a Shiite neighbourhood of the Afghan capital, where he is recovering from shrapnel wounds and burns.
“There was tight security during (the holy month of) Muharram but afterwards there was no checking.”
Afghanistan has largely escaped the sectarian violence that has ripped apart other Muslim countries such as Iraq and Syria, but IS attacks have been increasing in the past year and experts worry Shiites might retaliate.
Shiites, who number around three million in overwhelmingly Sunni Afghanistan, have for months been calling for more protection for their religious sites in Kabul and across the country, where civilians and security forces are taking huge casualties as authorities struggle to beat back insurgents.
In September, ahead of Muharram – the mourning period for the seventh-century killing of the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed – the government announced a plan to arm more than 400 civilians to help defend Shiite mosques. But the deadly attacks continued.
“It is 100 per cent the government’s fault for failing to protect us,” said Haji Ramazan Ali, who suffered shrapnel wounds to his face and shoulder in last Friday’s attack.
Rasoul Haidari, a shopkeeper, said: “To hell with the government, they don’t care about us.”
Shiite MP Mohammad Akbari said security at mosques may have slackened after the Ashura holy day on Oct 1, which has become a major target in recent years, and the latest attack should serve as a “wake-up call” for everyone.
The Taliban greatly outnumber the Islamic State in Afghanistan. But despite its relatively small presence, the Sunni extremist group has been able to carry out devastating attacks against Shiites across the country.
Ibrahim, a community elder in the same Shiite neighbourhood as the Imam Zaman mosque, said the militants were trying “to create discord between Sunnis and Shiites but they will not succeed”.
“Afghanistan has largely been spared from the sectarian violence that convulsed it in earlier decades but ISIS is trying to tear those sectarian divides back open,” said analyst Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Centre in Washington, using a common abbreviation for the group. — AFP