Violence, Eid celebrations go side by side in Muslim world
Millions of Muslims across world started Eid day with prayers and sharing feasts.
JAKARTA /KABUL/QUETTA (Web Desk) - Millions of Muslims began celebrating the end of the fasting month of Ramadan on Thursday with morning prayers followed by savory high-calorie feasts to mark the holiday, amid concerns over violence.
In Syria, mortars pounded an upscale district of Damascus in the same area where President Bashar Assad was attending holiday prayers at a mosque.
A rebel brigade claimed on its Facebook and Twitter pages that it hit the motorcade, but the information minister denied the attack and state TV showed Assad at the mosque.
The Eid al-Fitr holiday includes three days of festivities after a month of prayer and dawn-to-dusk fasting for Ramadan, when observant Muslims abstain from eating, drinking and smoking.
But despite Eid s peaceful message, some countries remained on heightened alert amid fears over violence.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai took a moment after Eid prayers in a speech to thank security forces fighting the insurgency and called for the Taliban to lay down their arms, stop killing and join the political process.
In Indonesia, the world s most populous Muslim nation, throngs of believers donning brand new clothes made their way to mosques.
The holiday is also a time of reflection, forgiveness and charity cars were seen driving around the capital, Jakarta, carrying people handing out envelopes to the poor.
Fireworks exploded across Jakarta throughout Wednesday night, with hundreds of people gathering at a landmark downtown traffic circle to watch the impromptu displays.
Still, Indonesian authorities were on high alert after a small bomb exploded in Jakarta earlier this week outside a Buddhist temple packed with devotees praying.
Only one person was injured, but two other devices failed to detonate. Officials have said the attack appears to have been carried out by militant Muslims angry over sectarian violence in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
In Afghanistan a bomb planted in a graveyard in rural eastern Afghanistan has killed 14 members of the same family as they were marking the start of a major Muslim holiday with a visit to the tombs of relatives.
The attack happened in Nangarhar province s Ghany Khel district on Thursday
In Pakistan a suicide bomber attacked a funeral for a policeman in southwestern Pakistan on Thursday, killing 23 people, including a senior police officer, and wounding over 60, police said.
The funeral was being held in an open field in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province. The somber ceremony was for a policeman who was gunned down earlier in the day as he traveled through the city in a vehicle with his children, said city police chief Mir Zubair Mehmood. Two of his children were wounded in the attack.
Most of the 23 dead and over 60 wounded in the suicide bombing were police officers, said police official Mohammed Aslam. Among those killed was the head of police operations in Baluchistan, Fayaz Sumbal, said Mehmood.
Sumbal spotted the suicide bomber before he detonated his explosives and asked police officers to quickly search him, said Aslam. As officers began to question the bomber, he blew himself up.
In Iraq officials say a double attack on a policeman s home in central Iraq has killed 13 people, including the policeman and his entire family.
Police officials said Thursday that gunmen stormed the policeman s home late the previous night in the city of Tikrit, killing the policeman, his wife, two sons and one daughter.
When neighbors started to gather around the house, a car bomb exploded on the crowd, killing eight people and wounding 30.
Violence has spiked in Iraq in recent months and the holy month of Ramdan, which ended on Thursday, has been the bloodiest since 2007.
A suspected US drone strike in Yemen killed six alleged al-Qaida militants Thursday in one of the group s former strongholds in a central province, a military official said.
The strike the sixth by a U.S. drone over the past 10 days came as Yemen remained on high alert following threats of a terror attack targeting Western and Yemeni government interests.
So far, about 29 suspected militants have been killed by unmanned U.S. aircraft in an apparent stepped-up drone war in Yemen. While the United States acknowledges its drone program in Yemen, it does not confirm individual strikes or release information on how many have been carried out.
