Afghan Wedding Blast Kills 39

[M8R]

An explosion in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan has killed at least 39 people, Afghan officials say.

Reports said the blast ripped through a wedding party on Wednesday evening, leaving another 70 more wounded.

It is unclear what caused the blast or why the wedding was targeted. No-one has yet said they planted a device.

Last week, Afghanistan held a national peace council and endorsed a plan to seek peace with the Taliban. But violence has continued unabated.

On Monday, Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) lost 10 soldiers on its deadliest day in months.
Violent week

Mohammad Anaas, a senior official with the Kandahar city administration, told Agence France-Presse news agency the explosion took place at a wedding in Arghandab district, about 20km (12 miles) north of Kandahar city.
Continue reading the main story

There was an enormous explosion and as a result everyone there was either killed or injured

Mohammad Zanif Groom's brother

He said the incident took place at about 2100 local time (1630GMT) and put the number of wounded at 73.

"We don't know how many bodies remain at the site and we don't know if it was a suicide attack or a bomb or something else," he told AFP.

The explosion was reported to have taken place in an area reserved for men.

The groom was one of those wounded in the attack, according to his brother, Mohammad Zanif.

"We don't know what happened. There was an enormous explosion and as a result everyone there was either killed or injured," he told AFP.
Map

Local television appealed to people for blood donations to help those injured.

Although the surrounding district is a base for the Taliban, the families at the wedding were not known to have links with the authorities or security forces, AFP reported.

In earlier violence on Wednesday, four American Nato soldiers were killed when their helicopter was shot down in neighbouring Helmand province.

The Taliban claimed its fighters had shot down the aircraft with a rocket-propelled grenade in Sangin district.

More than 20 Nato soldiers have died this week.

Last week, Afghan tribal leaders endorsed President Hamid Karzai's plan to seek peace with the Taliban.

The "peace jirga" backed an amnesty and job incentives to induce militants to give up arms.

The Taliban have been waging a battle to overthrow the US-backed government and expel the 130,000 foreign troops there.

Kandahar is set to be the next focus of Nato's military drive against the Taliban.
BBC News - Afghanistan explosion 'kills dozens' in Kandahar

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

Young Afghan suicide bomber approached wedding guests

'Everyone immediately tried to escape,' one guest said. But the boy's suicide vest detonated, killing more than 40 and wounding at least 80, said a police chief who witnessed the attack.

Two of those injured by the suicide bombing at an Afghan wedding party rest in a Kandahar hospital. (Humayoun Shiab, European Pressphoto / June 9, 2010)

​

By Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times

June 11, 2010

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan — The boy, dressed in white and thought to be no older than 13, appeared amid the din of a wedding party in a small southern Afghan village and walked up to within 15 feet of a cluster of tables where everyone was eating. As he prepared to detonate his suicide bomb vest, the gathering flew into a panic.

"Everyone immediately tried to escape," said Abdullah Jan, a guest at the wedding. But there was no time.

The boy's suicide vest packed with explosives detonated, killing more than 40 people and wounding at least 80, said Zemarai Khan, a local police chief who was at the wedding and witnessed the attack.
Carried out late Wednesday in a small village in Kandahar province, the attack underscored the vulnerability of Afghan society even as President Hamid Karzai pursues negotiations with Taliban insurgents who have waged war with his government and Western forces for nearly nine years.

The Taliban has scoffed at Karzai's peace offer and has carried out a wave of deadly attacks since the Afghan leader convened a national peace conference in Kabul, the capital, last week aimed at establishing a framework for talks with the insurgency.

The bombing of the wedding in the village of Nagahan in the Arghandab district was the deadliest of those attacks. The bomber, who witnesses said was 12 or 13, targeted a housing compound where men and young boys were celebrating the wedding, authorities said. Female guests were in a different area. The groom was injured but survived, Jan said. His brother was killed.

Though authorities have not determined why the wedding was targeted, witnesses said the groom and several members of his family were Afghan police officers. Also, residents of Nagahan have formed a tribal militia to help keep Taliban militants from infiltrating their area.

The Afghan Interior Ministry sent a team of investigators to Nagahan.

Zalmay Ayubi, a spokesman for Kandahar Gov. Tooryalai Wesa, said villagers were supportive of the Afghan government.

The blast drew condemnations from Western officials as well as Karzai, who called it an act by "merciless people, who target innocent people at social gatherings and simply want to kill as many as they can."

Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations' special representative for Afghanistan, called the attack an "outrageous act."

"To specifically target people who were gathering at a moment of happiness to celebrate a wedding shows a total disregard for civilian life," he said.

U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization commanders hope to turn the tide against the insurgency by defeating it in Kandahar, the Taliban's former headquarters and birthplace. With thousands of additional U.S. troops in southern Afghanistan or on their way, the United States and its Western allies will try to secure Kandahar while ramping up civilian projects in a bid to strengthen the Afghan government's presence in the region and ultimately turn its residents against the rebels.

U.S. commanders have moved away from using the term "offensive" to describe their strategy in Kandahar, and are now trying to characterize their efforts in the crucial province as a gradual process that might take longer than initially expected.

Speaking Thursday in Brussels, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, said the campaign to secure Kandahar, originally expected to conclude by August, probably would stretch into the fall.

"I do think it will happen more slowly than we had originally anticipated," McChrystal said. "It will take a number of months for this to play out, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.... I think it's more important that we get it right than we get it fast."

The Taliban has been fighting back in the south with a wave of attacks that have included assassinations of Afghan officials and the shooting down of a NATO helicopter this week that killed four U.S. soldiers.

Daud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Helmand province governor's office, said that on Tuesday insurgents in the Sangin district hanged a 7-year-old boy they had accused of spying for U.S. forces. Ahmadi said insurgents kidnapped the boy from his home and hanged him from a tree in his village. Taliban leaders denied that they executed the boy.

The Taliban also denied any involvement in the attack on the wedding. However, Wesa, the Kandahar governor, said he was convinced that the Taliban was responsible.

"The Taliban are doing two things at once," Wesa said. "On one side, they target people who are in favor of the government. Then, at the same time, they don't want people to know their real face."

alex.rodriguez@latimes.com

Young Afghan suicide bomber approached wedding guests - latimes.com

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

RIP , this war has consumed so many innocent lives..!

 

[Comet]

R.I.P all those who died.

What is the rationale behind attacking a wedding ceremony?

PS. Both the Taliban and US are against Afghan Weddings. One attacks from above, other from below.

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

Militia Is Said to Be Target of Afghan Wedding Attack

Allauddin Khan/Associated Press
The bodies of people killed at the wedding party. Twelve members of an anti-Taliban group were said to have died.


Afghan men on Thursday buried people killed in an attack on a wedding party in Nagahan. Forty people were killed, officials said.

​

KABUL, Afghanistan — The groom and 17 of the guests at a rural Kandahar wedding party attacked by a suicide bomber on Wednesday night were members of an anti-Taliban guard organization encouraged initially by American Special Operations forces, and the bomber’s goal appeared to be to undermine support for the group, elders and government officials in the area said Thursday.

The governor of Kandahar Province denounced the attack at a news conference.

“People from all walks of life are participating in a wedding: they are teachers, they are farmers, they are scholars, they are children,” said the governor, Tooryalai Wesa. “It’s not legal to kill large numbers of innocent people,” he said.

Forty wedding guests were killed and 87 were wounded, according to the governor’s office.

The commander of the group, known as an arbeki, a traditional form of a village defense force, said the American forces had supported him at the beginning but then had backed away and never delivered ammunition or other promised support. His force is homegrown and home-financed, said the commander, Mohammed Nabi Kako.

Despite the bombing, in which 12 of his men died, Mr. Kako spoke confidently of his ability to hearten his forces and repel future insurgent attacks.

“We will work harder against the Taliban in the future,” Mr. Kako said. “Our morale is high, and our people’s morale is even higher.”

“The Americans, they promised me that ‘if you find the men, we will provide weapons and everything you need, vehicles, ammunition, radios,’ then nothing happened. When I asked why, they said, ‘You should go to your government and your government will support you.’

“So we went to our government and they said, ‘You are not registered.’ So no one gave us even a single bullet,” he said.

The government of President Hamid Karzai has been skeptical of the groups, which it fears will develop local bases of power outside of government control. However, people in areas lacking Afghan security forces have had little choice but to fend for themselves, and about nine months ago American Special Operations forces started encouraging the formation of a handful of local groups in vulnerable places around the country. One was the group in Nagahan, where the attack on the wedding party took place.

“This is a tragedy. The village as a whole chose peace and to renounce violence and stand against the Taliban, and this senseless act has taken innocent lives,” said Col. Edward T. Nye, a spokesman for Special Operations forces in Afghanistan.

Colonel Nye would not comment on the local commander’s remarks about American aid, but he said “this is not going to dissuade us or drive us away, and I’m sure we’re going to continue to support the people of the area and side with them.”

Elders in the area said they believed that the suicide bomber’s intent was to erode confidence in the group and to make the area more vulnerable to insurgent infiltration.

“The local militia were quite effective and helpful and were supported by the civilian population; they were not letting Taliban come to their area,” said Haji Shah Aka, an elder from Nagahan.

“They are trying to terrify the people who want to protect their areas. It was a concrete message from the Taliban to the residents of Nagahan not to help the government and not to secure their area,” he said.

The Taliban denied responsibility for the bombing that, because it killed mostly civilians, went against their efforts to soften their image and reach out to civilians. The Taliban spokesman for southern Afghanistan sent text messages to local reporters denying any involvement and blaming NATO forces for the bombing.

In Paktia Province in eastern Afghanistan, 2,000 local leaders gathered in a district just a ridge away from the Pakistan border to endorse the recommendations of a peace conference held last week in Kabul. The crowd, heavily protected by the local police and NATO helicopters, would most likely have been far larger had the local Taliban not threatened to disrupt it, local leaders said.

Most of the speakers at the meeting condemned what they called Pakistan’s intervention in Afghan affairs. Those in attendance called on the government to intensify its efforts to persuade Pakistan to stay out of Afghan affairs, said Afghan reporters who attended the gathering.


Alissa J. Rubin reported from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar. An Afghan employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Khost, Afghanistan.

Militia Is Said to Be Target of Afghan Wedding Attack - NYTimes.com

 

[Ahmad]

What is the rationale behind attacking a wedding ceremony?

this is the Talibani Rational my friend.

 

[Rocketsingh]

no body care 4 the people in iraq,afgh.in wedding if this happens this is very pathetic

 

[Parashuram1]

And some people on this forum say Taliban are great people!

 

[Ahmad]

And some people on this forum say Taliban are great people!

Yes, because they havent seen the taste of the taliban yet.