Pakistan Blamed for Afghan Shia Shrine Atrocity

The suicide bombing which killed some 60 people and injured 200 in Kabul this week has further hardened local attitudes towards Pakistan, which many Afghans blame for the atrocity at a Shia shrine.

The explosion tore through the Abu Fazl shrine on December 6, as members of Afghanistan's Shia minority prepared to mark Ashura, the annual event which commemorates the martyrdom of the Imam Hussein.

The attack sparked strong condemnation, including by the Taleban, which called the incident an organised plot by foreign forces trying to trigger sectarian divisions among the Afghan people.

A militant group linked to al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taleban, Lashkar-e Janghvi, claimed responsibility for the strike.

President Hamed Karzai, who cancelled a trip to Britain so that he could visit casualties and family members of victims in the Emergency Hospital in Kabul, said he would be calling on Islamabad to explain the bombing.

"Certainly we will discuss this issue with the government of Pakistan and we will talk to them. This issue is extremely serious and important to us," he said. "This is the first time we have seen such an act on such an important religious day, and there is no doubt that this just shows hatred for the people of Afghanistan and contempt for Islam."

He went on, "Lashkar-e Jhangvi is located in Pakistan and took the responsibility, and the government of Afghanistan, with all its strength and power and with the support of the international community, will pursue this issue. Otherwise the blood shed by our children will have no meaning."

Many of those injured in the attack had no doubt that Pakistan was behind the planning and execution of the bombing.

Bibi Hawa, 32, waited outside the gate of the Emergency Hospital where most of the victims had been taken. She had injuries on her throat, but her concern was for wounded family members.

"Thirty of my relatives had gone to the Abu Fazl shrine – seven of them were killed and others were wounded," she said. "Now I'm going from one hospital to another to try to find them."

Crying bitterly, she added "Pakistan is our enemy. All these things are down to Pakistan. I hope God destroys them!"

Bashir Hasan Azizi, 28, had travelled from Baghlan province to visit the shrine. He was injured when a severed limb slammed into his stomach, causing serious injury.

"I fell down and saw it was someone's leg before I lost consciousness. Now the doctors say I have internal bleeding and I need an operation," he said, adding, "We hope that the blood shed by Afghans means that America and Karzai will no longer deal with Pakistan."

The relation between the two countries has long been a troubled one, with Afghans blaming Pakistan for giving sanctuary to Taleban insurgents as well as exerting unfair political and economic power over its neighbours.

Abdol Rashid Waziri, a political analyst, said Lashkar-e Janghvi had close ties to the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI. The attack, he continued, was an attempt to create religious divisions among Afghans as a way of increasing pressure on Kabul and showing Pakistan's importance, "particularly in the current context where relations between Islamabad and the United States and the international community generally have deteriorated".

Waziri insisted that attempting to create religious divisions would not prove an effective tactic among Afghans, because both Sunni and Shia shared the same national objectives and interests.

Mir Ahmad Joyenda, a political expert and former member of Afghanistan's parliament, also believes that the attack was planned in Pakistan with the aim of projecting influence.

"This incident – and other incidents which we can expect in future – show that there are major programmes of violence against Afghanistan on the agenda, and that Pakistan wants to move Afghanistan towards religious division and breakdown," he said.

However, Qurban Ali Urfani, a Shia scholar and lawmaker said that he did not blame the government of Pakistan for the attack, noting that Lashkar-e Janghvi had long targeted Shia Muslims in Pakistan, too.

After several attempts to reach the Pakistani embassy in Kabul, one official said no comment was possible as "the Pakistani ambassador is not in Afghanistan and others cannot give an interview".