For nine days, the ceremonies grow, with the climax on Ashura day itself. The occasion is marked by marches and ceremonies where people grieve for the events of Karbala, sometimes with men beating or flagellating themselves.
#ISLAMIC CALENDAR 2016 SHIA MUHARRAM 2016 FREE#
Shiite neighbourhoods are decorated with black, red and green banners and tents set up where free food and tea is distributed to the participants. (2)Īshura is the tenth day of Muharram, the first month in the Islamic lunar calendar, when particularly Shia Muslims mourn the killing of Hussain Ibn Ali, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad in Karbala, in today’s Iraq, in 680 AD, in fighting over who would lead the Muslim umma. Not surprisingly, though, as Ashura approached, pressure mounted on the government to get serious about protecting mourners this year. (‘Daesh Central’s’ justification of the 11 October 2016 attack in Kabul is quoted here) read also our reporting of Afghans fighting in Syria here, here and here).
(1) ISKP and ‘Daesh Central’ in Syria and Irqa have repeatedly justified its attacks on Hazaras by accusing them of helping their enemies’, ie fighting in pro-regime militias in Syria, ad attacked them as ‘apostates’. Since summer 2016, at least seven Shia mosques have been attacked in various regions of Afghanistan five of those attacks happened this year. Attacks on Shia mosques and other targets particularly proliferated countrywide after the emergence of ISKP (see here). But it is not just at Ashura that Shias fear attack: over the past two years, Daesh’s a local branch, the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), has vowed – and made good on its threats – to attack Shia Muslims and it has perpetrated attacks throughout the whole year. Since 2011, almost every Ashura has seen terrorist attacks on Shia congregations. Historically, Ashura processions were not marked by sectarian violence in Afghanistan, but that has changed over the last few years. There was no claim of responsibility for this attack by the late afternoon (Kabul time) on Friday. The casualty figure was at five dead and 25 injured, at least, a few hours after the incident (media reports here and here). In the second incident, a group of attackers, including two suicide bombers, reportedly caused blasts among Shia worshippers who were leaving Hussainia mosque in the Qala-ye Fathullah in centre-west Kabul in the early afternoon. AAN detected Daesh online sources hinting at its involvement in this attack and claiming it was directed against a Shia takiakhana (assembly hall) in the area. A spokesman for the Ministry of Interior (MoI) stated that the blast was triggered by a magnetic bomb attached to a police vehicle. In the first incident, in the late afternoon on 28 September, three people, including two policemen, were killed and 16 others injured in a blast near Pamir Cinema (at the western end of the main Maiwand Street), in the Chendawol area of Kabul’s old town that has a significant Shia population, according to an Afghan media report. The wave of violence against Afghanistan Shia community continued with two attacks on Thursday and Friday (28 and 29 September 2017) in Kabul.
Thomas Ruttig and the AAN team have looked at what is happening on the ground in a number of neighbourhoods in and beyond Kabul and on the possible repercussions.
According to leading Shia politicians, these measures will not be temporary. With these last-minute measures, the government is reacting to demands from the community and criticism that it has failed to protect Shias from sectarian attacks by the local branch of Daesh. The commemoration will take place this Sunday (1 October 2017). The Afghan government is arming local civilians and strengthening the police presence across the country to try to protect Shia Muslim places of worship in the run-up to Ashura.
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