AFGHANISTAN: Afghans mourn victims of country's worst suicide attack in Baghlan province

Relatives began to mourn the death of 41 victims, mainly children, who were killed in Afghanistan's Baghlan province in a suicide attack that was coined the country's worst suicide attack. Afghans began three days of national mourning on Wednesday (November 7) for 41 people, many of them children, killed in the country's worst suicide attack. Six of Afghanistan's lawmakers and school teachers were also killed. Family members cried next to the bodies of the children, whose blooded corpses were placed on beds in their homes. A father of one of the killed children lamented his inability to find anyone responsible for the murder. "This attack was carried out by the Taliban that only killed 10 people but the rest were victimised from the gunfire of security forces after the blast. There is no rule of law in this country to find the perpetrator of this incident," said Abdul Qahar. Habibullah was devastated as he lost two of his sons in the blast. "These are my sons, they have gone to greet the guests but unfortunately they returned in pieces of bodies," he said between tears. The attack, in the relatively peaceful north of Afghanistan, shakes public confidence in the ability of the Afghan government and the 50,000 foreign troops in the country to provide security more than six years after the Taliban were ousted from power. The Taliban have carried out more than 130 suicide attacks in Afghanistan so far this year, but the insurgents denied responsibility for Tuesday's (November 6) attack on visiting parliamentarians as they were being greeted by schoolchildren and elders. The bomber approached the parliamentary delegation on foot as children lined up to welcome them on a visit to a sugar factory in Baghlan. Large crowds had also turned out to greet the deputies. There were still pools of blood on the street at the site of the bombing on Wednesday as police collected body parts and put them in plastic bags. School notebooks and children's sandals lay strewn on the ground. Afghan leaders have in the past said Taliban and al Qaeda militants receive safe haven in Pakistan, but the two countries this year pledged to work together against the common threat from the insurgents who operate on both sides of the porous border. The Afghan Taliban have stepped up their attacks, including suicide bombs, in the past two years as part an insurgency to topple the Afghan government and drive out foreign troops in Afghanistan under the command of NATO and the U.S. military.

ITN Source | November 7, 2007

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