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At
least 37 people were killed and 50 more injured after a suicide bomber attacked
a mosque in Afghanistan’s northern city of Maymana, local officials reported.
Worshipers had gathered at the mosque to celebrate the Eid al-Adha Islamic
holiday.
The
bomber was reportedly wearing a police uniform when he detonated his explosives
in front of the Mosque.
Local
authorities said that over half those killed were police officers. The
provincial governor and police chief were in attendance at the prayer service,
and were reportedly nearly killed.
“There
was blood and dead bodies everywhere,'' Khaled, a doctor in the mosque at the
time of the attack told AFP. “It was a massacre.”
The
bombing comes after Afghan President Hamid Karzai appealed to insurgents to
stop “the destruction of our mosques, hospitals and schools.”
In
hi Eid message, Karzai urged the Taliban “to stop killing other Afghans.”
The
Taliban’s leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar called on his followers on Wednesday to
“pay full attention to the prevention of civilian casualties.”
Insurgent
attacks are far less frequent in northern Afghanistan, compared to the
country’s troubled southern regions. The last such incident in the north was in
April of this year, when a suicide bomber on a motorcycle attacked a meeting of
officials at a food market in Maymana, killing ten people.
Insurgent
killings have been on the rise in Afghanistan as alliance troops prepare to
withdrawal in 2014. Though the US-led coalition is currently in the process of
handing over security responsibilities to Afghan forces, there are mounting
concerns that Karzai’s government will be unable to cope with insurgent violence
after foreign troops pull out.
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