Roadside bomb kills 13 people on their way to Afghan wedding

At least 13 people, most of them members of the same family, were killed this week when their car struck a roadside bomb on the way to a wedding party in northern Afghanistan, officials said.

The bombing Wednesday in Kunduz province was the latest reminder of how short the distance between joy and grief can be in Afghan life. With the 18year war having long lost any sense of clear frontlines, carnage can strike anywhere from a mosque to a wedding hall to a country road.

The family of Aziz Rahman, 40, had been on its way to the wedding of one of his cousins in Talibancontrolled territory when the family’s car struck a roadside bomb Wednesday afternoon. Of the 16 people, mostly young children, who had been in the Toyota wagon, only Rahman and two others survived. His mother, his wife, a sister and five of his children were killed, along with two young nephews and three other relatives. A daughter survived.

“I had bought new clothes for all of them, for my kids and for their mom. But now they will all be buried in the earth,” Rahman said Thursday, weeping as he spoke. “I am dead, I am finished, I am destroyed.”

As the war spirals on, more and more Afghan civilians have been killed by roadside bombs planted by the Taliban, as well as by U.S. and Afghan airstrikes, which have been on the rise. A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said the militants were investigating the bombing Wednesday.

Improvised explosives have become one of the leading causes of civilian casualties, killing roughly 400 civilians in 2018, according to United Nations data. The bombs are hidden to avoid detection, and many demining agencies in Afghanistan have been largely unable to find and defuse them.

Saturday, at least 10 civilians were killed and five others were wounded in what was thought to be a U.S. airstrike in the Pushtiroud district in the western province of Farah, according to Abdul Hakim Rasooli, head of the provincial hospital. Thursday, Afghanistan’s human rights commission called for an investigation into the airstrike to hold those responsible to account.

Rahman’s relatives had been straddling the line between government and Taliban control to make the wedding ceremony happen. The house of the groom, Rahman’s cousin, is in the Imam Saheb district, which is largely controlled by the Taliban. The bride lives in the government-controlled city of Kunduz, as does Rahman.

Rahman remembered his family excitedly piling into the rented Toyota wagon in their new clothes to drive to his cousin’s home. A hired driver was at the wheel.

Rahman said he noticed a branch in the road, which apparently covered the hole dug to plant the bomb, just before the blast ripped through the vehicle.

“I lost consciousness after the explosion,” he said. “When I gained it back, I was stuck in the vehicle, my daughter was crying.”

Rahman was only slightly injured, and his daughter was unhurt. He was brought to a pharmacy for treatment, while others who gathered at the scene took his daughter to a nearby house.

When he returned to the scene, Rahman saw people gathering body parts. Some of the dead had been covered with shawls.