Suicide bombers kill 7 in north Afghanistan

Afghan boy, Ali Ahmad, 9, who was injured in a sui­cide car bomber, lies in a hos­pi­tal bed after receiv­ing treat­ment, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sat­ur­day, Oct. 29, 2011. A sui­cide car bomber struck a NATO con­voy on the out­skirts of Kabul on Sat­ur­day, a U.S. offi­cial says all 13 NATO ser­vice mem­bers killed in a sui­cide bomb­ing in the Afghan cap­i­tal were Amer­i­can troops. The Tal­iban claimed respon­si­bil­ity for the attack, which also killed four Afghans, includ­ing a police­man. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

RAHIM FAIEZ

Asso­ci­ated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Two sui­cide bombers tar­geted wor­ship­pers on a key Mus­lim fes­ti­val in north­ern Afghanistan, killing seven, includ­ing two local police com­man­ders, offi­cials said Sunday.

The bombers struck as Mus­lims were leav­ing a mosque on the out­skirts of Old Bagh­lan City after prayers at the start of the Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice.

At least 18 other peo­ple were taken to hos­pi­tals with injuries from the attack in Has­sin Tal, about 6 miles (10 kilo­me­ters) east of the city.

One bomber blew him­self up and the sec­ond was cap­tured before he could set off his explo­sives, said Lal Moham­mad Ahmadzai, spokesman for the regional police com­man­der in the north.

The bomb­ings raise ques­tions about Afghan forces’ abil­ity to tackle the insur­gency head-on with­out their NATO part­ners. NATO is work­ing to hand­ing over full secu­rity respon­si­bil­i­ties to Afghan forces before the end of 2014, when the coali­tion plans to with­draw its com­bat troops.

NATO offi­cials say attacks such as Sunday’s bomb­ing do lit­tle more than grab head­lines and have lit­tle impact on the bal­ance of strength between the gov­ern­ment and the insurgents.

Kamen Khan, the police chief in Old Bagh­lan City, said one of the two dead local police com­man­ders was a well-known local leader named Abdul who, like many Afghans, goes only by one name.

There was no imme­di­ate claim of respon­si­bil­ity, but the Tal­iban, against whom NATO has waged a decade-long war, rou­tinely tar­get Afghan offi­cials and secu­rity forces as well as inter­na­tional forces.

In his Eid mes­sage two days ago, Tal­iban leader Mul­lah Omar said his fight­ers must pro­tect Afghan civil­ians, who are dying in ris­ing num­bers, so the insur­gency can main­tain good rela­tions with the population.

U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, the top com­man­der of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, con­demned the bomb­ing and chal­lenged Omar to do so, too.

“If Mul­lah Omar is seri­ous about his call upon the Tal­iban to elim­i­nate acts against civil­ians, he too should con­demn this pub­licly,” Allen said.

Sep­a­rately, NATO said that two of its ser­vice mem­bers were killed, rais­ing to 495 the num­ber of coali­tion troops killed in the coun­try so far this year. One was killed in an insur­gent attack in the south on Sat­ur­day, and one died in another attack by mil­i­tants Sun­day in the west. NATO pro­vided no other details.

As the U.S.-led coali­tion and its Afghan part­ners have focused their oper­a­tions on Tal­iban strong­holds in the south and east, the insur­gency has car­ried out an increas­ing num­ber of attacks in the north and west.

Shortly before the morn­ing attack, Karzai greeted Afghans on the hol­i­day. Break­ing with past speeches mark­ing the occa­sion, he made no men­tion of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with the Tal­iban and did not call on its lead­ers to break from the insurgency.

Eth­nic minori­ties, who reside out­side south­ern Afghanistan, where the Tal­iban are at their strongest, are the most resis­tant to efforts to rec­on­cile with the insurgents.

Minori­ties worry that Karzai, a Pash­tun, will make too many con­ces­sions to the Tal­iban to shore up his Pash­tun base in craft­ing a peace deal to end the war. Assas­si­na­tions of promi­nent north­ern­ers are likely to erode their already min­i­mal appetite for a peace settlement.

Five lead­ers affil­i­ated with the North­ern Alliance, a coali­tion mostly com­posed of non-Pashtun minori­ties which has fought the Tal­iban since 1996, have been killed in a lit­tle more than a year.

Later Sun­day, Karzai met with Aus­tralian Prime Min­is­ter Julia Gillard, who made an unan­nounced trip to the country.

Gillard’s trip comes after an Afghan National Army sol­dier opened fire dur­ing a parade at a base in south­ern Kan­da­har province on Oct. 29, killing three Aus­tralian sol­diers and wound­ing seven oth­ers. Aus­tralia has about 1,500 troops in Afghanistan. The attack brought Australia’s death toll from the con­flict to 32.