54 dead, 150 hurt in Kabul shrine blast: health ministry

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A total of 54 people were killed and 150 others wounded in a massive blast close to a Shiite shrine in the Afghan capital Kabul on Tuesday, the country's health ministry said.

"Fifty-four are dead and 150 others are injured," said health ministry spokesman Ghulam Sakhi Kargar Noorughli.

The attack in Kabul and another in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif came a day after an international meeting in Germany meant to further efforts to end the Afghan war, 10 years after US-led forces drove the Taliban from power.

Men and women at the scene sobbed as they surveyed the carnage, and screamed slogans denouncing Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

A young girl, dressed in a green shalwar kameez that was smeared in blood, stood shrieking as she was surrounded by the crumpled, piled-up bodies of children.

"I was there watching people mourning (for Ashura) when there was suddenly a huge explosion," witness Ahmad Fawad said.

"Some people around me fell down injured. I wasn't hurt, so I got up and started running. It was horrible," he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either blast. Sectarian violence has been rare in Afghanistan but when the Sunni Taliban ruled in the 1990s, minority Shiites from the Hazara group suffered brutal persecution.

Shiites beat and whip themselves in religious fervour during the 10-day Ashura ceremonies, which began on November 27 but peak on Tuesday. They mark the seventh-century killing of a grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.

Shiites were banned from marking Ashura in public under the Taliban. Sunnis oppose the public display of grief, but sectarian violence has not been common in Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted in late 2001.

"A suicide bomber detonated his explosives in the Abu-Ul Fazil shrine," Kabul police said in a statement, without giving any death toll.

A security official speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed that more than 30 people had been killed.

The official said it was believed the bomber had arrived with a group of Shiite pilgrims from Logar province, south of Kabul.

Separately, four people were killed in Mazar-i-Sharif when another blast struck a shrine in the northern city as crowds gathered for Ashura. It was not immediately clear whether Shiites were the target.

Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, a police spokesman for northern Afghanistan, said that the blast was caused by a bicycle bomb, adding that four other people had also been injured.

And police said that five people were wounded by a motorcycle bomb in the southern city of Kandahar, the Taliban's heartland. But the police said the attack was unconnected to Ashura.