A Pakistan-based terrorist group is believed to be behind the bombings of Shi’ite holy sites in Afghanistan Tuesday that killed at least 59 people, spiking concerns that a new form of sectarian violence could further destabilize the nation. The coordinated attacks in the northern city of Mazar-i-sharif and the capital of Kabul during the holiest day for Shi’ite Muslims is believed to be the work of Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni extremist group, a group with known ties to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency.
Afghanistan’s Ministry of Interior and National Directorate of Security, the country’s main intelligence agency, are heading the investigation. U.S. officials said they are closely monitoring the situation, which they fear will ignite a cycle of retaliatory attacks inside the country.
“This is different from what we have seen in the past,” said a U.S. official, who asked not to be named. “Is this a shadow of things to come or a one- time event? If this is the beginning of a pattern — this is something we need to be concerned with.”
Along with the dead, more than 100 people were injured in the bombings that included as its victims a large number of women and children, according to reports.
The attacks in Afghanistan came one day after similar bombings in Iraq, when explosions in several cities killed at least 28 Shi’ite pilgrims. There is no evidence yet that the bombings are connected, the U.S. official added.
Afghan intelligence officials are investigating the possibility that the bombings could be linked to Pakistan’s spy agency, an Afghan official told The Washington Examiner. “Pakistan’s intelligence agency wants to fuel sectarian violence in Afghanistan,” the official said.
In September, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen told members of Congress that Pakistan’s spy agency was behind the attack by Pakistan’s Haqqani network on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, and a truck bomb that injured more than 77 troops in Wardak Province, Afghanistan. The accusation’s were denied by Pakistani officials.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the attacks saying, “We will not allow the progress of the last 10 years to be rolled back.”
If it is proved that the Pakistan militant group “LEJ” did carry out the attack, it would be the first time they have conducted a major strike in Afghanistan, the U.S. official said. The group is known for its sectarian violence in Pakistan against Sunni Muslims.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who had attended the Bonn Conference, in Germany on Monday, cancelled his planned trip to England Tuesday to head back to Afghanistan.
“This is the first time on such an important religious day in Afghanistan that terrorism of that horrible nature is taking place,” he said to reporters in Germany.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who attended the Bonn Conference Monday, said he was “shocked by the sectarian attacks yesterday and today on innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan” and pledged a “long term” commitment to Afghanistan.
Gen. John Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, said, “An attack against Ashura pilgrims on one of the holiest of days in the Islamic calendar is an attack against Islam itself, and we denounce and condemn these atrocities in the strongest of terms,”
Sara A. Carter is The Washington Examiner’s national security correspondent. She can be reached at [email protected].
