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Bomb kills 14 as Afghan president calls for peace
A bomb planted in a graveyard in rural eastern Afghanistan killed 14 members of a single family on Thursday as the country's president urged the Taliban to lay down their arms
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bomb planted in a graveyard in rural eastern Afghanistan killed 14 members of a single family on Thursday as the country's president urged the Taliban to lay down their arms.
The family was getting together to mark the start of a major Muslim holiday, the Eid al-Fitr at the end of the holy month of Ramadan, with a visit to the tombs of a relative. In Afghanistan, it is customary for families to visit the graves of loved ones on holiday occasions.
The attack took place in Nangarhar province's Ghany Khel district and all 14 killed ' seven women and seven children ' were members of the same family, said Masum Khan Hashimi, the province's deputy police chief. Three family members were also wounded in the attack, he said, adding that an investigation was under way.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
It's unclear why the family was targeted, but they were visiting the grave of a relative, a tribal elder named Haji Khayali who worked for a security company and who was killed by the Taliban earlier this year.
The dead man's brother, Haji Ghalib, who said his daughter was among those killed Thursday, blamed the Taliban for the attack. Ghalib, who was not with his family when the attack happened, said over the telephone that he also worked at a security company and was a member of a local peace council seeking to reconcile with the insurgents.
Ghalib said he had fought in the war against the Soviet occupation and was also a former inmate at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Imprisoned as a Taliban sympathizer, he was released in 2007 after serving four years.
"My family is finished. These people are inhuman," he said.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the bombing, denouncing it in a statement as "a cowardly act by the enemies of the people of Afghanistan who are not part of any religion."
"They even attack in a Muslim cemetery on the start of Eid, they kill our innocent countrymen," Karzai said.
Earlier, in a speech after attending prayers for the holiday in Kabul, Karzai urged the Taliban to lay down their arms, join the political process and stop killing innocent civilians.
