At least 5 killed in Afghan Sunni-Shi’ite clash

KABUL (Reuters) – Clashes broke out between members of
Afghanistan’s Shi’ite minority and Sunnis at a religious
festival on Thursday and at least five people were killed and
27 wounded, a doctor said.

“We have some five or six dead bodies lying outside the
hospital, they have been brought here, and inside the hospital
we have 27 wounded,” said Sayed Ahmad Alemi, a doctor at the
main hospital in the western city of Herat.

Ten people were killed in Afghanistan this week in protests
over cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Mohammad published in European
newspapers, but police in Herat said the violence had nothing
to do with that controversy.

Herat police official Nisar Ahmad Paikar a brawl broke out
at a gathering for the Ashura commemoration after a group of
Sunnis accused Shi’ites of tearing up a sacred flag.

The fighting intensified and 10 people were wounded when a
grenade was thrown and several Shi’ite mosques were set on
fire, said a Defense Ministry official who declined to be
identified.

Police fired into the air to break up the fighting,
residents said.

Alemi said some of the wounded were being treated for gun
shots and some had been beaten.

About 80 percent of Afghans are Sunni Muslim, with most of
the remainder Shi’ite.

In recent years there has been no serious trouble between
members of the different sects, unlike in neighboring Pakistan
where militants from the different sects regularly attack each
other.

There were no reports of disturbances over the cartoons of
the Prophet Mohammad on Thursday after three days of violent
demonstrations.

Afghanistan’s latest violence comes as NATO countries are
preparing to expand a peacekeeping mission, and after a wave of
bomb attacks on foreign and Afghan forces and civilian targets
blamed on Taliban and al Qaeda militants.

Ashura marks the martyrdom of Imam Hussain, a grandson of
the Prophet Mohammad.