From the AP:
Dozens of schoolchildren and five teachers were among those killed in a suicide attack in northern Afghanistan earlier this week — the country’s deadliest since the fall of the Taliban — the government said Friday.
The 59 schoolchildren had lined up to greet a group of lawmakers visiting a sugar factory in the northern province of Baghlan on Tuesday when a suicide bomber detonated explosives.
“The education minister has ordered that no children should be ever again be used in these sort of events,” said Zahoor Afghan, an Education Ministry spokesman. He said the children ranged in age from 8 to 18.
In all, the explosion claimed the lives at least 75 people, including several parliamentarians, and wounded 96. It was the deadliest attack in the country since the toppling of Taliban regime from power in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.
From the BBC:
Early investigations into Tuesday’s bombing in the Afghan province of Baghlan indicate that the attacker used ball bearings to maximise casualties.
The ball bearings were mixed with explosives, the interior ministry says.
Efforts to establish an accurate casualty toll will get underway later on Friday.
The provincial governor says the death toll now stands at 52, with 106 people injured.
Business as usual for the Religion Of Peace™.
When they’re not trying to convert or kill the unbelievers, they’re perfectly happy killing each other.
Not God, Allah, Buddha, or any other religious deity would sanction this kind of carnage.
For a person to deliberately detonate himself and others when children are present — for the purpose of killing children — is barbarism, is the epitome of Evil.
Fight these people, until your last breath, wherever they may be, with whatever weapons you have, until they are gone from this Earth.
Afghanistan, Taliban, Baghlan, suicide bomb
