KABUL, Afghanistan: Several bombs exploded nearly simultaneously at a cricket match in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province, killing at least eight people, a provincial official said Saturday.
Attahullah Khogyani, spokesman for the provincial governor, said about 45 others were wounded at the sports stadium late Friday night in the provincial capital Jalalabad.
The attack happened as hundreds of spectators gathered for a night-time tournament during the holy month of Ramadan. Khogyani said the deputy provincial mayor of neighboring Laghman province and the main organizer of the tournament were among those killed.
In a statement, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani strongly condemned the attack, saying that carrying out such an attack during the holy month proved once again that terrorists are not true believers of any religion or faith and “are enemies of humanity.”
The three bombs exploded nearly at the same time, Khogyani said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but both Taliban insurgents and Daesh are active in eastern Afghanistan, especially in Nangarhar province.
Official says several bombs at Afghan cricket match kill 8
Official says several bombs at Afghan cricket match kill 8
- Several bombs exploded nearly simultaneously at a cricket match in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province
- The attack happened as hundreds of spectators gathered for a night-time tournament during the holy month of Ramadan
Neighbors of alleged Bondi gunmen shocked by deadly rampage
- Local media named the two suspected gunmen as father and son Sajid and Naveed Akram
SYDNEY: Like many people in Sydney, Glenn Nelson spent his Sunday evening watching television coverage of a deadly shooting on the city’s iconic Bondi Beach.
But stepping onto his front porch, flanked by neatly trimmed box hedges, he saw armed police cordoning off the street before raiding the house opposite — home of the two suspects who are alleged to have killed 15 people in Australia’s worst mass shooting in decades.
“I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll catch the rest in the morning,’ the next thing, the drama is out the front door,” he said in an interview on Monday, shortly after mowing his lawn.
Nelson and other neighbors said the family living across the street kept to themselves, but seemed like any other in the suburb of Bonnyrigg, a working-class, well-kept enclave with an ethnically diverse population around 36 km (22 miles) by road from Sydney’s central business district.
Local media named the two suspected gunmen as father and son Sajid and Naveed Akram.
Police have not named the suspects, but they said the older man, 50, was killed at the scene, taking the number of dead to 16, while his 24-year-old son was in a critical condition in hospital.
Police said the son was known to authorities and the father had a firearms license.
The Sydney Morning Herald spoke to a woman on Sunday evening who identified herself as the wife and mother of the suspects.
She said the two men had told her they were going on a fishing trip before heading to Bondi and opening fire on an event celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.
“I always see the man and the woman and the son,” said 66-year-old Lemanatua Fatu, who lives across the street.
“They are normal people.”
Until Sunday’s shooting, Bonnyrigg was an otherwise unremarkable neighborhood typical of Sydney’s sprawling Western suburbs.
It has significant Vietnamese and Chinese communities, along with many residents who were born in Iraq, Cambodia and Laos, according to government data.
The town center, a strip mall with a large adjoining car park, is flanked by a mosque, a Buddhist temple and several churches.
“It’s a quiet area, very quiet,” Fatu said. “And people mind their own business, doing their own thing — until now.”
Not much is currently known about the suspects’ backgrounds.
A Facebook post from an Arabic and Qur'an studies institute appearing to show one of the men was removed on Monday and no one answered the door at an address listed for it in the neighboring suburb of Heckenberg.
On Monday afternoon, as police took down their cordon, several people re-entered the house, covering their faces. They made no comment to the media and did not answer the door.
