Agencies
A suicide bomber killed at least 45 people when he attacked a crowd of spectators at a volleyball match in eastern Afghanistan yesterday. The attack, which wounded 60 more, took place in a village in Yahyakhail district in Paktika province, one of the most unstable areas in the country.
The bomber entered a large crowd, wearing a belt with explosives, and blew himself up in the middle of spectators and players, said Mokhles Afghan, spokesperson for the governor of Paktika.
The match was part of a youth tournament between three districts of Paktika, and as a result most casualties were young people.
“There were no checkpoints, and that is the reason the suicide attacker could enter this area,” he said.
According to Bahawul Khan, a member of Paktika’s provincial council, there were also eight members of the local police among the dead.
The attack happened at 5pm, when the local health clinic was closed, so all the wounded had to be transferred to the hospital in the provincial capital Sharana, said Ali Khan, provincial head of public health.
“I and my friends were watching the game and we were cheering each time our team scored,” Abdulhay, an 11-year boy being treated for minor injuries in hospital in Sharana, the provincial capital of Paktika, said by telephone.
“Then I heard a boom that threw me back unconscious. I opened my eyes in the hospital and don’t know if my friends are dead or alive.”
There was no immediate response from the Taliban, the insurgent group behind many of the attacks across Afghanistan.
“The suicide attacker was on a motorcycle, he detonated himself in the middle of a volleyball match,” Attaullah Fazli, deputy governor of Paktika, said.
“A lot of people including some provincial officials and the police chief were there. About 50 people have been killed, and 60 injured, a lot of them seriously.”
“The scale of the attack and its aftermath is shocking,” he said. “We have asked Kabul to send us helicopters to take some of the critically wounded for treatment”, Afghan said.
President Ashraf Ghani, who came to power in September, swiftly condemned the attack, describing it as “inhumane and un-Islamic”.
“This kind of brutal killing of civilians cannot be justified,” he said in a statement that put the toll at 45 people dead.
One eyewitness, Khushal, 25, said that he saw a man in a traditional shawl get off his motorbike before blowing himself up.
Paktika was also struck by a massive suicide blast in July, when a bomber driving a truck packed with explosives killed at least 41 people at a busy market in Urgun district.
A suicide bombing at a mosque in the northern province of Faryab in October 2012 killed 42 people, while another suicide blast at a shrine in Kabul on the Shiite holy day of Ashura in December 2011 killed 80.
Yesterday’s attack occurred on the same day that the lower house of parliament approved agreements to allow about 12,500 Nato-led troops to stay on next year.
US-led Nato combat operations will finish at the end of this year, but the Taliban have launched a series of offensives that have severely tested Afghan soldiers and police.
Armed opposition groups in Afghanistan are vehemently opposed to the security agreements, which Ashraf Ghani ordered his security adviser Hanif Atmar to sign on 30 September, in one of his first acts as president.
The upper house of parliament has yet to ratify the deals.
The attack emphasises the challenge the president faces tackling an insurgency that has flared up over the past months. As foreign troops withdraw, Taliban militants have intensified assaults on government troops, particularly in provinces in the east and south.
Paktika has borne the brunt of the attacks. Bordering some of Pakistan’s volatile tribal areas, the province is rife with insurgent activity, including from the Pakistan-based Haqqani network. In July a suicide attacker detonated a car bomb at a busy market square in Urgon district, killing at least 42 people.
According to western security officials, the threat of attacks and kidnappings in eastern Afghanistan increased when the Afghan intelligence service captured two senior Haqqani leaders in the neighbouring Khost province a month ago.
Yesterday evening, however, no group had taken responsibility for the attack.
