KABUL – Minutes after he took a seat among hundreds of religious scholarsat a ceremony for the Prophet Mohammad´s birthday in Kabul, a hugeexplosion shook the room, throwing Ahmad Fareed to the floor.
Scattered around him were the bloodied bodies of turbaned men who had takenthe full force of the suicide blast and probably saved his life.
“It was absolute horror, people dead and wounded, covered in blood andpieces of flesh,” Fareed, 40, told AFP on Wednesday as he lay in a hospitalbed with leg and shoulder injuries.
“My friend and his little son were also next to me, covered in blood andnot moving.”
At least 55 people were killed and 94 wounded when the bomber blew himselfup in the middle of the banquet hall at the Uranus Wedding Palace onTuesday evening — one of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan this year.
A video posted on social media purportedly filmed by one of the hundreds ofattendees showed a large gathering of men listening to a recitation of theQuran before an explosion triggered pandemonium.
On Wednesday morning, as cleaners prepared the multi-storey venue for moreevents, bloodied turbans, sandals, overturned chairs and broken glass stilllittered the cavernous room where the massacre happened.
The attack drew widespread condemnation in Afghanistan and abroad, with theUnited Nations describing it as an “atrocity”.
Read Top Stories
US ambassador to Kabul John Bass said he was “sickened and deeply saddened”by the bombing, while the European Union delegation to Afghanistan said theexplosion was “an attack on all of us, religious or not, who value freedom”.
President Ashraf Ghani declared Wednesday a national day of mourning forthe victims of the attack, which he described as an “unforgivable crime”.
Security at the wedding hall included a body search by an armed guardfollowed by physical checks by several religious students, said Obaidullah,who suffered multiple injuries to his face and body.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, though the Taliban werequick to condemn the blast. The Islamic State group, which has claimed mostsuicide attacks in Kabul this year, has not issued a statement.
It is not clear why the religious scholars were targeted on one of theholiest days in the Islamic calendar.
Most of the people at the gathering were Sufis, a mystical branch of Islam,said Mehrab Danish, an adviser to the religious affairs minister. – APP /AFP
