Kabul attack: Did ISI exact revenge on Afghanistan in the aftermath of Mohmand?

A number of well coordinated attacks clearly targeting Shia Muslims in Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kandahar have killed at least 58 Shias in Afghanistan. A Pakistani anti-Shia group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has accepted the responsibility of the attacks. (Source)

A spokesman for an Pakistani extremist group called Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al Almi claimed responsibility in a phone call to Radio Mashaal – a Pashto language radio station. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, (LeJ) is a murderous anti-Shia group founded which acts act as surrogate for Taliban and al-Qaida. The Pakistani Taliban has its roots in anti-Shia violence, and LeJ acted as the training ground for its leader, Hakimullah Mehsud. LeJ maintained training camps in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime but has not mounted attacks in Afghanistan in recent years. The group is believed to be supported by Pakistan’s spy agency, ISI. The group also claimed responsibility for the massacre of 29 Shia pilgrims on a bus in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province in September, and an attack on an Ashura procession in Karachi in 2009 which killed 30 people. Earlier this year, the Pakistani courts freed Malik Ishaq, one of LeJ’s founders. Ishaq had faced dozens of murder charges but the courts said there was lack of evidence – his group had allegedly killed numerous witnesses who may have testified against him. (Source)...Continue Reading......

Family mourns its own after day of prayer that turned fatal

EIGHT relatives from an extended family - three women and five children - were buried on a hillside overlooking Kabul yesterday after being killed in a suicide attack. Nine other relatives were seriously injured, including a three-year-old boy who is in a coma. At least 55 people died, including one American, and 134 people needed hospital treatment after an explosion outside a Shia shrine on Tuesday night as crowds gathered for the holy festival of Ashura...Continue Reading....

Refugee reviewer 'biased'

THE Federal Magistrates Court has ruled that a reviewer who rejected the refugee claims of a large number of Afghan boat arrivals appeared to be biased, taking an ''inflexible and mechanical'' approach to the plight of Hazara ethnic minorities fleeing persecution. Refugee approval rates for Afghan asylum seekers fell in the first three months of 2011, despite the worsening security situation in Afghanistan, as the federal government came under pressure to stem boat arrivals.....Continue Reading...

Asylum bids met 'sausage factory'-style rejections

"Inflexible and mechanical" ... Steve Karas. Photo: Mike Bowers
THE Federal Magistrates Court has ruled that a reviewer who rejected the refugee claims of many Afghan boat arrivals appeared to be biased, taking an ''inflexible and mechanical'' approach to the plight of Hazara ethnic minorities fleeing persecution....Continue Reading...

(AFP) US urges Pakistan to act after Afghan attacks

WASHINGTON — The United States on Wednesday urged greater action by Pakistan against a Sunni Muslim militant group that Afghanistan blamed for an unprecedented massacre against its Shiite minority. Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that the banned Pakistani extremist movement Lashkar-i-Jhangvi orchestrated the bloodshed Tuesday on the Shiite holy day of Ashura...Continue Reading...

(Aljazeera) Kabul in grief after Ashoura shrine blast

Kabul, Afghanistan - "In the name of the martyrs of Karbala," repeats an elderly woman with each step she takes, moving from one fresh grave to the next. Under her black shawl of grief, she crouches, cups her hands in prayer, and looks to the sky. Then she touches the gravestone and moves on to the next. More than a dozen victims of Tuesday's blast in the Abul ul-Fazl shrine have been buried in the Kart-e-Sakhi cemetery, overlooking the west of Kabul. Red and green flags wave over their graves...Continue Reading....

The Afghans bury their dead

Posted December 08, 2011 13:58:00

Hundreds of people have joined funeral processions for some of the more than 50 people killed in this week's suicide bomb blast at a Shia Muslim shrine in Kabul. The sectarian attack was the deadliest in the Afghan capital for three years, and shocked many across the country. The Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, has accused members of the Pakistan-based Sunni terrorist group, Lashkar e JHangvi, of carrying out the bombing....Listen Radio Report...