Afghan attacks kill at least 43
Suicide bombers hit multiple sites
New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — Bombings and shootings took the lives of at least 43 Afghans on Tuesday in the deadliest day for civilians this year as insurgents struck while people were preparing for the Muslim holiday that ends the month of Ramadan.
The worst death toll came in the southwestern province of Nimroz, where suicide bombers struck the provincial capital, Zaranj, as people were thronging to shop for the Id al-Fitr holiday this weekend. The bombings killed at least 29 people and wounded 57, said Gen. Mohammed Musa Rasuli, the provincial police chief.
In Kunduz Province in northern Afghanistan, a remotely detonated bomb on a motorcycle exploded in a bazaar just after the evening prayer that breaks the Ramadan fast, killing 10 people, said Sheikh Saadi, the district governor. The bombing occurred in Dasht-eArchi, in the province’s west.
And in Badakhshan Province, in the far northeast of the country, a district governor and three policemen were killed in a Taliban ambush as they were driving through a remote area, said Abdul Rasul Rasekh, a spokesman for the provincial governor.
President Hamid Karzai, who was in Saudi Arabia, strongly condemned the attacks in a statement that said, “The terrorists are so desperate and abject that they kill our innocent Muslims in the holy month of Ramadan.”
The attack in the small city of Zaranj was startling for the planning on the part of the insurgents, who did considerable damage despite being largely thwarted by the police. Eleven attackers appear to have converged on the city in the past several days, taking up positions in safe houses, said police and provincial officials.
The first inkling of trouble came on Monday night when police officers, acting on a tip, found two potential suicide bombers in a safe house with a large amount of explosives and weapons. They killed the two men, and on Tuesday caught three more suspects in the plot whom they took into custody. But a few hours later, at 3 p.m., explosions began in multiple places, Rasuli said.
The first two bombs, one near the governor’s office and the other targeting a police car, did little damage but “created panic in the town as people rushed toward the provincial hospital to see if any of their relatives had been hurt,” Rasuli said.
As people gathered in front of the hospital, just across from a crowded market, another bomber struck, and that explosion caused the majority of the casualties, the general said. He added that three other bombers had been shot elsewhere in the city.
The motives of the bombers were not clear, and the Taliban did not claim responsibility. Nimroz is relatively quiet for a province in the south of Afghanistan, and has not seen the insurgent activity common to neighboring areas.