By ROD NORDLAND
Published: December 6, 2011
The article starts, saying:
A Pakistan-based extremist group claimed responsibility for a series of coordinated bombings aimed at Afghan Shiites on Tuesday, in what many feared was an attempt to further destabilize Afghanistan by adding a new dimension of strife to a country that, though battered by a decade of war, has been free of sectarian conflict. (New York Times)
The attacks has struck down three cities in Afghanistan, which are Kabul, Kandahar, and Mazar-i-Sharif. 63 Shiite worshipers on Ashura were estimated to be killed almost at the same time.
Sunnis strikes against the minority Shiites are alien to Afghanistan. Therefore, no Afghan was surprised when responsibility was claimed by a Sunni extremist group from Pakistan.
One important point would be:
The group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, had not previously claimed or carried out attacks in Afghanistan, however, and its emergence fueled suspicions that Al Qaeda, the Taliban or Pakistan’s spy agency — or some combination of those three — had teamed up with the group to send the message that Afghanistan’s future stability remained deeply tenuous and indeed dependent on the cooperation of outside forces.
The president of Afghanistan commented, "The enemies of Afghanistan do not want us to live under one roof with peace and harmony."
The timing of the attacks is considerable. That was a day after international conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, Germany, and that conference had been viewed as an opportunity for Afghanistan to cement long-term support from the west.
The article also tells:
Critics of Pakistan were quick to read Monday’s boycott and Tuesday’s bombings as a signal from the Pakistanis, delivered by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, that Afghanistan could not ignore Pakistan. (New York Times)
“Pakistan is our historical enemy and wants us to never live in peace,” said Noor Mohammad, one of the wounded worshipers, who was covered in blood minutes after the attack in Kabul. “What should we do, where should we go? The terrorists are not even letting us carry on our religious practices.” (New York Times)
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