Sikhs among 19 dead in Afghanistan bombing

Nineteen people, many of them Sikhs, were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan, yesterday as President Ashraf Ghani visited the city.

The attacker struck a market hundreds of metres from the provincial governor’s compound where Mr Ghani was holding meetings, said Attaullah Khogyani, the Nangarhar governor’s spokesman.

Among the 19 dead were 12 Sikhs and Hindus, he said. Another 20 people were wounded.

At the hospital, grieving relatives wept as they waited for news of their loved ones.

“It is over for us, we are finished, they have massacred us, at least 10 of us,” said a relative.

Provincial health director Najibullah Kamawal confirmed 19 people had been killed, the majority of them Sikhs.

Small communities of Sikhs and Hindus live in the majority-Muslim nation.

It is not clear if they were the intended target yesterday.

Interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish confirmed a suicide bomber carried out the attack – the latest deadly assault in the unsettled province.

Mr Ghani’s spokesman said the president was “away from danger” in the city.

He arrived in Jalalabad earlier yesterday to open a hospital, part of a two-day visit to the province, which borders Pakistan.

The attack came a day after he ordered Afghan security forces to resume offensive operations against the Taliban after the expiration of the government’s 18-day ceasefire.

That truce overlapped with the Taliban’s three-day ceasefire for Eid, but the militants chose not to extend it.

The ceasefire over the holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan triggered spontaneous street celebrations involving Taliban fighters, security forces and war-weary civilians.

But it was marred by two suicide attacks in Nangarhar that killed dozens of people and were claimed by ISIS, which has a smaller presence in Afghanistan.

The extremist group was not part of the ceasefire.

The attack came as United States envoy Alice Wells visited Kabul as part of efforts to ratchet up pressure on the Taliban to engage in peace talks.

The Taliban have so far ignored Mr Ghani’s offer of peace negotiations.

Instead, they have insisted on direct talks with the US, which Washington has repeatedly refused.

Ms Wells said that since the Afghan government and the US were willing to start talking without preconditions, the onus was now on the Taliban to respond.

It is over for us, we are finished, they have massacred us, at least 10 of us

GRIEVING RELATIVE Jalalabad, Nangarhar province