At least 60 people were killed and more than 170 were injured Dec. 6 in three militant attacks on gatherings in observance of the Shiite mourning period of Ashura. The first occurred at 11:45 a.m. local time when a suicide bomber blew himself up while in line to enter the Abul Fazl Abbas shrine in the Murad Khani neighborhood of Kabul, killing at least 56 people and wounding more than 154. The second attack occurred sometime after noon in Mazar-e-Sharif, when explosives hidden in a bicycle detonated as a Shiite procession neared, resulting in at least four deaths and 20 injuries. A third attack at 1 p.m. in Kandahar targeted another Shiite procession with explosives packed into a motorcycle, but the explosion missed its target and resulted in no deaths but at least five injuries, according to the Kandahar police chief. The explosions are the largest sectarian attack since the fall of the Taliban government, and their similar timing and target choice suggest that they were coordinated by a militant network in Afghanistan. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said his group was not responsible for the attacks, while a man identifying himself as Abu Bakar Mansur told Peshawar-based media outlets that Pakistani militant network Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) was behind the Kabul explosion. The attacks appear to indicate that LeJ, which has close ties to al Qaeda and foreign jihadists, is attempting to ignite new types of infighting and to disrupt any movement toward a negotiated settlement between Washington, the Afghan government, Pakistan and the Taliban. If so, it represents a highly visible and significant break between LeJ and the Taliban.
