If a clear sign was needed that things in Afghanistan are not going according to plan, today’s car bomb in Paktika is about as clear as it’s going to get. Killing at least 89 people and injuring dozens more, the suicide bomb exploded as a vehicle loaded with explosives passed by a busy market on Tuesday morning.
Mohamma Raza Kharoti, the district governor, told Reuters news agency that “the number of wounded will rise to more than 100 and the number of those martyred will also increase.”
Though it is one of the most casualty-ridden acts of civilian violence in recent memory, it wasn’t the only bomb that went off in Afghanistan on Tuesday. In Kabul, a remote-controlled roadside bomb killed two people and wounded five others, drawing condemnation from President Hamid Karzai. The victims of the Kabul bombing were members of Karzai’s media office. But while the Taliban readily took credit for the Kabul roadside bomb, they deny having any part of the one in Paktika, claiming that violence against civilians is outside of their M.O.
