Number, identities uncertain after Friday attack

KABUL, Afghanistan—The identities and the number of the dead after Friday’s suicide-bomb attack on the Finest supermarket in the Wazir Akbar Khan section of Kabul remain unclear Saturday evening.

The Associated Press reports:

Six members of a prominent Afghan family were among those killed … Dr. Massoud Yama, a young doctor at a military hospital, his wife, Hamida Barmaki, a political science professor at Kabul University, and their four children. She was an activist and served on the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

Yama’s mother … is former Afghan senator Maboba Hoqiqmal, who currently is Karzai’s legal affairs adviser.

Earlier reports indicated as many as nine dead, but eight more often, and that five were women, including four Filipino nationals. Those numbers fail to adequately account for the employees, who are overwhelmingly local males.

Body counts in Afghanistan are routinely understated, says a well-informed colleague. Data collection is unreliable and information has political value. The reported death toll from the suicide bomb attack by motorcycle on Jan. 12 in Puhli Surhk was two, then four, but was almost certainly more, he says. A Toyota minivan and driver that exploded in front of a crowded bus stop and a military convoy on Darulaman Road last May killed a reported 18 persons. The carnage and wreckage afterward strongly suggested a higher number.