Kabul – A deadly suicide attack on Tuesday in Kabul killed at least 43 Muslim scholars and injured around 83 people who gathered in a convention hall for a religious conference.
A suicide bomber sneaked into the convention hall with a waist-bomb and detonated himself resulting in a powerful explosion leaving the bodies of Muslim scholars torn apart into tiny pieces spread all over the hall.
Afghan Ulema body has denied any media reports attempting to create rifts among Afghan Muslims by giving it a sectarian “Wahabbi vs Sunni” color.
More than 20 people seem to be in critical condition while death toll is increasing, Public Health Ministry spokesperson, Wahid Majroh said.
Interior Ministry Spokesman, Najib Danish said, “the suicide bomber was able to sneak into a wedding hall in Kabul where hundreds of religious scholars and clerics had gathered for a conference.”
So far no terrorist organization has claimed the attacks, however, a local ISIS affiliated group has targeted Muslim scholars who were associated with the government in the past. Based on the past attacks, the affiliated groups are speculated.
Kabul Police Chief, Basir Mujahid said, “Police had not been asked to provide security for the event, and that the bomber had easily slipped into the hall. Most wedding halls have private security.”
“Most unfortunately all the victims of the attack were Muslim scholars,” added Mujahid.
The waiter at the convention hall, Mohammed Muzammil, was the first-hand witness of the attack, who had gone into the back to get water-cans for the scholars when he heard a heavy explosion. No sooner he came running, he saw everything was smoggy.
“There were dead bodies all around the chairs, in large numbers”, Muzammil said.
Distressed family members and relatives of the scholars have gathered in the hospital to track the list hanged outside the hospital about those who were killed and wounded in the blast.
In the meanwhile, Police and Army have been deputed to stop all the roads leading to the blast site.
In the June ISIS attacks against Muslim scholars of Afghanistan, the attackers accused scholars of being “scholars for dollars” or “paid Mullahs” for supporting Afghan government by calling peace-talks and prosperity of the country.
The organizations like Ikhwanul-Muslimeen, Al-Qaida, ISIS, Hezbollah, and their affiliated factions deem every Muslim scholar who calls for obeying the governments fit to be killed since “scholars have aligned with the tyrants” and “eventually left Islam.”
Most of the terrorists ascribe to “Wahabbi” ideology, however, the leading Salafi scholars of Saudi Arabia like Abdulazeez Bin Baaz and Shaykh Mohammed Uthaymeen issued grand fatwas declaring suicide-missions to be absolutely forbidden and a path to eternal hellfire.
