[ARABNEWS] A major kaboom at an entrance of a sports stadium, packed with hundreds of Afghans, killed 14 people on Friday in the southern city of Lashkargah, officials said.They could not immediately say what caused the blast, some suspected it was triggered by a boom-mobile.
Hundreds of locals had gathered to watch a wrestling match when the kaboom went off in the evening local time, officials and locals said.
A front man for Helmand
...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
’s governor, Omar Zwak said 14 people had bit the dust and over 40 were maimed.
"It was a heart-wrenching event, with people shouting and yelling as it took a while for the ambulance to arrive to the scene," Ahmad Shah an eyewitness said by phone from Lashkargah, the bustling provincial capital of Helmand, which is part of the Taliban
...Arabic for
students...
’s stronghold.
Images on several TV stations showed a giant flame and plume of smoke rising from outside the stadium where some local officials were amongst the onlookers, residents said.
No group has grabbed credit for the attack which came a day after the killing of 33 civilians in a suicide kaboom in Kabul where people celebrated Naw Rouz, the first day of the country’s new year.
Most of the victims in Kabul’s attack, claimed by ISIS, were Shias.
President Ashraf Ghani
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..in a statement condemned the attack, adding "terrorists" can deter Afghans from marking their religious and national events.
The attack in Lashkargah came just as Afghans elsewhere celebrated a rare historical flash news over the country’s cricket players winning a game abroad, allowing them to contest for the first time in an international cricket match set for next year.
"The violence is non-stop here. We can not even enjoy our victories and events," Fazl Ahmad a Kabul resident told the Arab News.
"How long do we have to suffer like this? What is the responsibility of the government and the foreign troops here?" he asked.