In response, U.S.-backed Karzai emphasized that Muslims had been killed: “Those behind this attack should know once again that the blood of the Muslim people has been spilled. It will not have any other result.” He has never shown any similar indignation over non-Muslims being killed.
“Taliban suicide bomber blows himself up in bathhouse in southern Afghanstan [sic], killing 17,” by Elena Becatoros and Tarek El-Tablawy for The Associated Press, January 7 (thanks to Ima):
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – A suicide bomber struck a bath house in a southern Afghan town as men gathered to wash up before Friday prayers, killing 17 people, a provincial official said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for an attack they said targeted the deputy of an influential border patrol commander.
The attack came the same day NATO announced that three of its service members were killed in roadside bombings, underscoring the continuing threat the Taliban pose, despite a stepped-up coalition offensive.
The midday bombing killed 16 civilians and a police inspector in Spin Boldak near the Pakistani border, about 70 miles (110 kilometres) east of the provincial capital of Kandahar, said the governor’s spokesman, Zalmay Ayubi. An additional 23 people were wounded, and officials said many of them were transported to Pakistan for treatment.
A Taliban spokesman in the south, Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, said the attack targeted the second-in-command of the border patrol in the area. Officials have not identified the dead inspector as the border patrol deputy.
President Hamid Karzai, whose government has been battling the Taliban while trying to bring them to the negotiating table, called the bombing a “brutal” and un-Islamic act.
“Those behind this attack should know once again that the blood of the Muslim people has been spilled. It will not have any other result,” Karzai said in a statement released by his office….