At least 55 people have been killed in a suicide bombing at a crowded Kabul shrine on the most important day in the Shia calendar, raising fears that radical insurgent groups are attempting to unleash a sectarian war in Afghanistan.
Around 150 people were wounded when the bomb exploded amid a throng of worshippers, including women and children, who were hemmed in on a street between the Abul Fazl shrine and the Kabul river. A second bomb, which killed four people in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, also targeted pilgrims heading to a commemoration of the holy festival of Ashura.
Last night it was reported that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has cancelled a visit to the UK to return to Afghanistan in the wake of the bombings.
A policeman who witnessed the Kabul attack said the suicide bomber worked his way into the centre of a crowd that had gathered to watch young men engaged in ritual flagellation to mourn the death in the seventh century of Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
"I saw bodies and limbs fly up into the air," said Rohullah, another witness 21 year old who was standing on a rooftop overlooking the procession of worshippers.
Terrified survivors streamed away from the blast, leaving behind a horrific scene of carnage. Dozens of bodies lay scattered around a dark patch on the road where the bomb had exploded.
A Pakistani militant group with close ties to al-Qaida said it had carried out the attack, although security sources could not confirm the group's involvement. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami claimed responsibility in a phone call to Radio Mashaal, a Pashto-language station set up by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
The Taliban were quick to condemn the bombing, the bloodiest single incident for Afghan civilians since 2008. Shia Muslims, who make up around 20% of the population, and other minorities suffered when the hardline Sunni movement was in power, but in recent times the Taliban have tried to portray themselves as a force for national unity.
In an emailed statement, the movement described the attacks as "un-Islamic" and blamed the "invading enemy", one of the terms they use to describe US-led Nato forces. They alleged foreigners were trying to foment unrest in order to extend the length of their stay in the country.
The Taliban have stretched credulity in the past by denying responsibility for attacks that have killed large numbers of civilians and outraged public opinion. But Martine van Bijlert, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, said this time the denial seemed plausible.
"It doesn't fit with what they have done in the past, unless it turns out that they, or a group or them, have quite fundamentally changed," she said.
Although there is a long history of bomb attacks on Shias in neighbouring Pakistan, there has never been such a large-scale attack in Afghanistan, raising fears that radical outside groups are being drawn into the already complex and fragmented Afghan insurgency.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Almi is a splinter group of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), which maintained training camps in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime but has not mounted attacks in the country in recent years. General Mohammad Zahir, the chief of Kabul CID, said he believed LeJ was involved in Tuesday's attack, although a LeJ operative in Pakistan told the Guardian his group was not involved.
The group has admitted atrocities in the past, including the killing of 29 Shia pilgrims on a bus in Pakistan's Baluchistan province in September. It is also believed to have been behind an attack on an Ashura procession in Karachi that killed 30 people in 2009.
LeJ, whose operational leadership hides in Pakistan's tribal areas, is considered to be the Pakistani militant group closest to al-Qaida. It is also closely tied to the Pakistani Taliban.
"What is clear is that this is a new development in Afghanistan," said Van Bijlert. "It is not part of the fault lines of the conflict that we are aware of. It looks designed to provoke sectarian or ethnic tensions."
Immediately after the blast, armed police rushed to the scene, throwing a security cordon round the historic neighbourhood of Murad Khani, which is close to several government ministries.
Stunned and tearful locals milled around as loudspeakers still played recorded verses of the Qur'an. Furious young men stalked the area of the bombing, shouting at police and foreign journalists.
People worried about their missing relatives ran down traffic-free streets to get to the scene, while others crowded around a nearby hospital run by the Italian organisation Emergency.
Many of the worshippers at the shrine in Kabul were Hazaras, a mostly Shia ethnic minority which was persecuted by the Taliban regime.
Shortly after the attack in Kabul, a bomb carried on a bicycle exploded not far from the famous Blue Mosque in Mazar-e-Sharif. Zahir Wahdat, the deputy governor of Balkh province, said four people were killed and approximately five wounded. He said he believed the bomber had been trying to get inside the mosque.
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