Afghanistan Mosque Hit By Suicide Bomb as Muslim Holiday Begins
A suicide bomber in attacked a mosque in Afghanistan on Friday, just as worshipers were meeting to mark the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday. Authorities say that a local police chief visiting the mosque in the town of Maymana, in the remote Faryab province, may have been the target of the attacker, as nearly half of those killed were fellow police officers. (The chief survived.) More than 50 other people were wounded and the death toll could rise higher. The BBC reporters that the bomber himself was wearing a police uniform, which allowed him to get close the building without being searched.
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Taliban did not admit blame for the bombing, but did take credit for the latest "green on blue" attacks that killed three Western soldiers on Thursday. An Italian solider was killed an Afghan solider in Farah province, while two U.S. soldiers were shot by a local policeman in Uruzgan province. The policeman later joined up with the Taliban. That brings the death toll of NATO soldiers killed by "insider" attacks in 2012 to 54.
