KANDAHAR — Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned a suicide blast that left up to 80 people dead at a dog-fighting match yesterday as an attack on Islamic values and the “happiness” of ordinary people.
Karzai issued a statement from Qatar, where he was on an official trip, saying he was deeply saddened on learning of the attack in the southern city of Kandahar, his office said.
The president, who comes from Kandahar province, said the strike was carried out by the “enemies of Afghanistan who cannot tolerate the happiness of our people,” it said in a statement.
“Such acts are against the values of Islam,” the statement said.
The extremist Taleban group, which has been behind a wave of suicide attacks in Afghanistan, would not accept responsibility for the blast.
The interior ministry in Kabul said more than 65 people, including children and policemen, were killed and more than 50 wounded when a suicide bomb tore through hundreds of men and boys watching dog fighting. Kandahar governor Asaduallah Khalid said, however, that more than 80 were dead.
“Fighting had just started between two dogs,” 53-year-old spectator Abdul Karim told AFP at the site of the blast, an open area hosting about 500 fans of a favorite Afghan winter sport.
“Suddenly I heard a huge explosion next to a police vehicle. Then I saw lots of people dead and wounded. I counted over 40 people on the ground dead.” Those who could walk scattered in panic; the dead and wounded were loaded into civilian vehicles and rushed to hospitals in the city center, 15 kilometer away, Karim said. Some searched in the chaos for relatives. “My brother was killed,” one teenage boy, his eyes filled with tears, told an AFP reporter.
Another fan of the sport, which was banned by the Taleban government during its 1996-2001 stint in power, described the incident as the “most horrible in my life.” “I don’t know where it came from,” Abdul Qudous told AFP in a military hospital where he was being treated for injuries to his arm.
“It was all fun and two dogs had just begun fighting. Suddenly a huge flame flashed and a huge bang was heard. I didn’t know what happened next but when I opened my eyes, I found myself here.”
Another spectator, Sher Mohammad, said the powerful blast had hurled him meters away from where he had been standing in a circle of men around the dog fight.
