SHIBERGHAN, Afghanistan, 21 January 2005 — A suicide bomber blew himself up in northern Afghanistan yesterday wounding more than 20 people, but the target of the attack, ethnic Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, escaped unhurt. The ousted Taleban government said it carried out the attack.
A video of the attack in Dostum’s hometown of Shiberghan showed the warlord in a turban and a traditional green and blue striped silk coat in the front row of thousands of worshippers at open-air prayers for the Eid Al-Adha.
Later, as supporters thronged the burly former general to kiss his lapels, a loud bang was heard and a puff of gray smoke rose from just behind Dostum and the crowd quickly scattered.
A young man with a wispy beard lay on the ground, his body torn in half.
“After Eid prayers, I greeted some people and when I wanted to put on my shoes, my bodyguards were trying to stop people coming toward me,” Dostum told the local Aina television.“Suddenly there was a very big explosion. Fortunately, with the grace of God, I was not injured,” he said.
Dostum said 21 people were wounded, “to my knowledge six of them are in a critical condition,” he said.
Doctors said they treated 23 people for wounds, including the warlord’s brother Qadir Dostum, Afghan ambassador to Kazakhstan. The Taleban said they had launched the attack in retaliation for Dostum’s killing of their fighters.
“This was done by the Afghan Taleban mujahedeen,” said Taleban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi by satellite telephone. “We have planned attacks against our enemies in Afghanistan. Dostum was involved in the killing of Taleban.”
Dostum, who vowed never to bow to a government that banned whisky and music, fought the Taleban as they rose to power in the late 1990s and in 2001 helped US-led forces overthrow them. His forces were accused of letting hundreds of Taleban prisoners suffocate to death in transport containers after their capture in 2001, a charge Dostum strongly denies.
