Burials are taking place in the Afghan capital, Kabul after a bomb exploded at a wedding hall killing 63 people and wounding more than 180. The Islamic State (IS) group said it was behind the attack. The blast happened on Saturday during a wedding ceremony at around 22:40 local time (18.10 GMT).
President Ashraf Ghani has condemned the attack describing it as “barbaric”. He blamed the Taliban for “providing a platform to terrorists.” The Taliban has denied involvement and condemned the attack. An IS statement said that one of its fighters blew himself up at a “large gathering” while others “detonated a parked explosives-laden vehicle” when emergency services arrived.
The Afghan interior ministry confirmed the death toll hours later. Pictures on social media showed bodies strewn across the wedding hall amid overturned chairs and tables. Afghan weddings often include hundreds of guests who gather in large halls where the men are usually segregated from the women and children. The latest blast comes just 10 days after a huge bomb killed 14 people and injured nearly 150 at a Kabul police station.
We are used to violence in Muslim countries. In Pakistan sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis leave scores dead. The Pakistan military has spawned generals like Tikka Khan, known infamously as the Butcher of Balochistan and Bengal, who show no hesitation to use state terror to subjugate their own people.
Similarly in Afghanistan ISIS and the Taliban show no mercy when striking or killing their own people — just for a show of cowardly power which would ostensibly terrorize huge swathes of the local populace. Thus these so-called ‘Islamist’ groups like nothing better than to strike terror into the heart of Muslims, and not members of any other religion.
If they want to prove that they are brave and fight to help Muslims then they should send their members to Rakhine, Xinjiang, and other regions where Muslims are actually being circumscribed from living their lives on a daily basis. Regions where Muslims are actually marginalized economically and socially by the government or local administrations should be regions where they should demonstrate their fighting courage.
The so-called Islamist outfits are harming the good name of Islam as a just and peace-loving religion. True Muslims all over the world must rise to denounce such un-Islamic terrorist bodies for the damage they are causing to Islam. Islam does not approve of killing unarmed innocent people, Muslims or no Muslims. We must stop Islam to be projected as a religion of insane cowards.
President Ashraf Ghani has condemned the attack describing it as “barbaric”. He blamed the Taliban for “providing a platform to terrorists.” The Taliban has denied involvement and condemned the attack. An IS statement said that one of its fighters blew himself up at a “large gathering” while others “detonated a parked explosives-laden vehicle” when emergency services arrived.
The Afghan interior ministry confirmed the death toll hours later. Pictures on social media showed bodies strewn across the wedding hall amid overturned chairs and tables. Afghan weddings often include hundreds of guests who gather in large halls where the men are usually segregated from the women and children. The latest blast comes just 10 days after a huge bomb killed 14 people and injured nearly 150 at a Kabul police station.
We are used to violence in Muslim countries. In Pakistan sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis leave scores dead. The Pakistan military has spawned generals like Tikka Khan, known infamously as the Butcher of Balochistan and Bengal, who show no hesitation to use state terror to subjugate their own people.
Similarly in Afghanistan ISIS and the Taliban show no mercy when striking or killing their own people — just for a show of cowardly power which would ostensibly terrorize huge swathes of the local populace. Thus these so-called ‘Islamist’ groups like nothing better than to strike terror into the heart of Muslims, and not members of any other religion.
If they want to prove that they are brave and fight to help Muslims then they should send their members to Rakhine, Xinjiang, and other regions where Muslims are actually being circumscribed from living their lives on a daily basis. Regions where Muslims are actually marginalized economically and socially by the government or local administrations should be regions where they should demonstrate their fighting courage.
The so-called Islamist outfits are harming the good name of Islam as a just and peace-loving religion. True Muslims all over the world must rise to denounce such un-Islamic terrorist bodies for the damage they are causing to Islam. Islam does not approve of killing unarmed innocent people, Muslims or no Muslims. We must stop Islam to be projected as a religion of insane cowards.
