Afghanistan: Suicide Bomber Kills/Wounds Scores Of People

Afghanistan: Suicide Bomber Kills/Wounds Scores Of People In Attack On Group Of Visiting Afghan Parliamentarians In Baghlan Province
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
...

CSMonitor.com brings us this story and it starts off like this... A senior Afghan opposition politician was among scores of people killed Tuesday by a suicide bomb attack in a previously peaceful northern province of Afghanistan... Reports of the number of people killed or injured varied from as low as 13 to as many as 100. But because many of the victims were young children, observers say, the attack was one of the most devastating to hit Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001... Hamidullah Tarzi, a former finance minister, said Tuesday's attack was a clear attempt by the Taliban to show that they can operate with impunity outside Afghanistan's ethnic Pashtun belt – the extreme Sunni movement's southern heartland...

Read story in full at link below...
Suicide attack strikes once peaceful northern Afghanistan

*********************************************

Press Statement
Sean McCormack, Spokesman
Washington, DC
November 6, 2007

Statement by Sean McCormack, Spokesman:
Attack in Mazar-I-Sharif, Afghanistan

We condemn the attack that has killed and injured so many innocent civilians - including elected Afghan parliamentarians and school children. We send our condolences to the families of the victims. There is no political cause that can justify the murder of innocent people. Those responsible seek only to foster fear and limit freedom; and they should be brought to justice.

The enemies of peace and freedom want to gain through violence, threat, and intimidation what they cannot win in free and fair elections. The United States continues to support and work with the Government of Afghanistan and the Afghan people to eliminate terrorist threats and build an open, stable, and democratic Afghanistan.
2007/971

(DoS Press Statement)