Celebrations Turn Into Mourning As Suicide Attack Kills At Least 63 Guests At Wedding In Kabul
Witnesses told the BBC a suicide bomber detonated explosives during a wedding ceremony. The explosion happened at around 22:40 local time (18.10 GMT) in an area in the west of the city mostly populated by Shia Muslims. The Taliban denied they w
A suicide bomber killed 63 people and wounded 182 in an attack on a wedding reception in the Afghan capital on Saturday night, the interior ministry said.
The Taliban denied responsibility for the blast at a west Kabul wedding hall, in a minority Shi'ite neighbourhood, packed with people celebrating a marriage.
Women and children were among the casualties, interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said on Sunday.
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The attack came as the Taliban and the United States are trying to negotiate an agreement on the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in exchange for a Taliban commitment on security and peace talks with the US-backed government.
It follows a bomb attack on a mosque in Pakistan on Friday that killed a brother of Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada. No one claimed responsibility for that blast, which killed four people and wounded about 20.
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Pictures posted on social media showed bodies strewn amid overturned table and chairs at the wedding hall. The bomber struck the men's reception area, officials said.
"Everybody was running," a waiter at the hall, Sayed Agha Shah, said after the blast.
"Several of our waiters were killed and wounded."
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Wedding halls have become a big business in Kabul as the Afghan economy slowly picks up and families spend more on celebrations.
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At least 40 people were killed in an explosion at a wedding hall in Kabul in November.
