Afghan cleric, six students die in bomb attack

By Shadi Khan Saif

KABUL, Afghanistan

A top pro-government cleric and six children studying at his seminary were killed in a bomb attack in northern Afghanistan on Tuesday, a security source confirmed.

The incident occurred at around 7.40 a.m. (0310GMT) at a religious school in the Charikar city, the capital of Parwan province, Mohammad Zaman Mamozai, the provincial security chief, told Anadolu Agency.

He said Mawlavi Abdul Rahim Shah Hanafi, the head of provincial Ulema Council, and six of his pupils died in the blast, which left eight people wounded including students.

The explosive device was placed under a mattress inside a madrasah in the Edigah Mosque, Mamozai added, and blamed the Taliban militants for the attack.

President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack in a statement.

"The terrorist groups, which have no belief in any religious value or human rights, have time and again achieved the goals of others by killing religious scholars, women and children, and by attacking sacred places," Ghani said, vowing to crush the terrorists.

Nobody has yet taken responsibility for the attack.

The Taliban, however, claimed Sunday's assassination of a young religious scholar in southern Kandahar province where Abdul Ghafoor Pairoz, a young and promising writer and strong critic of fundamentalism, was shot dead by a Taliban assassin in front of his home.