Bomb at Eid prayers kills Afghan provincial governor, 11 worshippers in Iraq
killed an Afghan provincial governor Tuesday as he made
a speech at a mosque after Eid prayers in Logar, close to
the capital Kabul, officials said.
And in Iraq a bomb ripped through a crowd of
worshippers Tuesday as they left a mosque in Iraq after
prayers marking the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, killing
11 people, police and a doctor said.
"This morning, governor Arsala Jamal was delivering a
speech after Eid prayers when he was killed by a bomb
planted in the microphone," Logar provincial governor
spokesman Din Mohammad Darwish told AFP.
"Eight other people have been wounded."
No group claimed immediate responsibility for the blast,
though Taliban militants often target government officials
as well as Afghan soldiers and police.
Eid ul Adha is a major public holiday across the Muslim
world, with mosques packed with devotees marking the
prophet Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his son when
God ordered him to.
Sheep and goats are sacrificed in many households and the
meat distributed among family, friends and the poor.
Bomb targeting worshippers kills 11 in Iraq
And in Iraq a bomb ripped through a crowd of
worshippers Tuesday as they left a mosque in Iraq after
prayers marking the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, killing
11 people, police and a doctor said.
The blast near a Sunni mosque in the northern city of
Kirkuk also wounded 22 people, the sources said.
An AFP photographer at the scene said bodies, their
clothes covered in blood, were placed in the back of a small
police pickup truck to be taken away. Bright red blood
stained the street.
Angry and grieving worshippers railed against those who
carried out the attack, shouting, "God take revenge on
those who are evil!"
Eid al-Adha, which commemorates the willingness of
Abraham (Ibrahim in Arabic) to sacrifice his son at God's
command, is the biggest Muslim holiday of the year.
Almost nothing is safe from attack by militants in Iraq,
where violence has reached a level not seen since 2008
when the country was just emerging from a brutal sectarian
conflict.
Secure targets such as prisons have been struck in past
months, along with cafes, markets, mosques, football fields
as well as weddings and funerals.
The increasing number of attacks on both Sunni and Shiite
gatherings have raised fears of a relapse into the intense
sectarian bloodshed that killed tens of thousands of people
in 2006-2007.
Analysts say the Shiite-led government's failure to address
the grievances of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority — which
complains of being excluded from government jobs and
senior posts and of abuses by security forces — has driven
the surge in unrest.
Violence worsened sharply after security forces stormed a
Sunni anti-government protest camp in northern Iraq on
April 23, sparking clashes in which dozens died.
And while the authorities have made some concessions
aimed at placating anti-government protesters and Sunnis
in general, such as freeing prisoners and raising the salaries
of Sunni anti-Al-Qaeda fighters, underlying issues remain
unaddressed.
The Iraqi government has enacted new security measures
and carried out wide-ranging operations against militants
for more than two months, including dozens of executions,
but has so far failed to curb the violence.
The latest unrest takes the number of people killed so far
this month to more than 310, and to over 5,000 since the
beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on
security and medical sources.
In addition to major security problems, the government has
failed to provide adequate basic services such as electricity
and clean water, and corruption is widespread.
Political squabbling has paralysed the government, while
parliament has passed almost no major legislation in years.
Source:Vanguard
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