Wednesday, August 10, 2011 – In a bid to halt the new deadly tactic of using turbans to hide explosives by insurgents in Afghanistan, Afghan president Hamid Karzai has asked the country’s religious elders to use their influence on militant insurgents, to sway from the use of turbans for carrying out suicide attacks.
This comes as militants used the new turban bombing tactic last month which killed the mayor of the southern city of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban, and a senior cleric in the city, raising questions about how to guard against this new ploy without causing religious offence.
Meanwhile, militant insurgents have also used women’s burqas to disguise themselves in order to carry out suicide attacks both in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Siyamak Herawi, a spokesman for Karzai said, Karzai recently met with members of ulema councils from around the country to discuss the issue.
Mr. Herawi said further added, “From our point of view, by misusing Islamic values (the insurgents) want to draw a bad picture of Islam for the people of the world.”
He also said, president Karzai asked the clerics to launch a campaign to convince insurgents not to use turbans and other religious attire to carry out suicide bombings, not to target mosques and to make them aware that suicide was un-Islamic.
The new tactic of turban suicide bombing has became an issue for the Afghan civilians where security guards at some government ministries in Kabul are now asking men to remove their turbans for security checks.
In the meantime, Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban said, they had never hidden a bomb in a turban.
Taliban militants also did not claim responsibility for the July 14 killing of the senior Kandahar cleric and four others at a funeral service for the slain brother of president Karzai.
But the militants did claim the killing of Kandahar mayor Ghulam Haidar two weeks later.
But Mr. Mujahid said the bomb had not been hidden in a turban.
The spokesman for the Taliban militants group said, “If using a turban is an Islamic, respectful and cultural issue, then why did Karzai put it on the head of many foreign generals in the past years?”
Taliban militants have continuously denied any role in attacks on religious sites as the group’s core ideology is the religion.
Carrying suicide attacks in funerals and mosques is not something new and has happened in the past as well in various parts of the country, where security officials have blamed Taliban militants as they are the only group fighting in Afghanistan that use suicide bombers.
