Afghans bury slain lawmakers
KABUL, Afghanistan - Hundreds of weeping relatives rushed toward the grave of Afghanistan’s leading opposition spokesman, who was buried Thursday along with four other legislators killed in the country’s deadliest suicide attack since the Taliban’s ouster.
Thousands gathered to bury Sayed Mustafa Kazimi, the other lawmakers and their bodyguards, who were among the 73 people, most of them children, slain in Tuesday’s bombing.
Clerics recited prayers and local and international dignitaries stood by in silence as the flag-draped coffins of the legislators and their bodyguards were lowered into the ground near Darulaman Palace, the bombed-out seat of former Afghan kings on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul.
A sixth was to be buried in the southern province of Helmand.
Some of Kazimi’s supporters held banners calling for an international investigation into the bombing, suggesting they held the government partly responsible. Witnesses have said some victims may have been killed or wounded by guards who opened fire after the blast, which occurred as lawmakers were about to visit a sugar factory in the northern province of Baghlan.
Scores of the victims were schoolchildren who - along with tribal elders and government officials - had lined the streets to greet them.
Violence in Afghanistan this year has been the deadliest since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban from power. More than 5,700 people, mostly extremists, have died so far this year in insurgency-related violence, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and Western officials.
The U.N. Security Council condemned the suicide attack “in the strongest terms” and urged Afghan authorities “to make every efforts to bring the perpetrators and organizers to justice.”