Photo credit: AP | An Afghan man is comforted by relatives outside of a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan - In Afghanistan's first major sectarian assault since the fall of the Talibanregime a decade ago, a suicide bomber slaughtered 56 Shiite worshippers and wounded more than 160 others Tuesday outside a Shiite shrine in the capital.
The body of a woman, clutching a dead child in each arm, was sprawled along a dirt road littered with shoes, bloodstained clothing, hats and body parts after the blast, which took place as a bombing killed four Shiites in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
A loudspeaker at the shrine blasted a recitation of the Quran as ambulances with loud sirens rushed in to carry away the dead and wounded. Outside a hospital in Kabul, a man sobbing with other relatives cried out "Mother! My mother!"
The Taliban condemned the attack, which was reminiscent of the wave of sectarian bloodshed that shook Iraq during the height of the war there. Suspicion centered on militant groups based in neighboring Pakistan where Sunni attacks on minority Shiites are common.
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