Afghanistan has traditionally seen few purely sectarian outrages, but the Shia-Sunni schism is blurred by ethnic divisions
Every year, just as the Shia ceremonies of Muharram reach their peak on the tenth day of Ashura, the suicide attacks begin. As Shia men pour into the streets – flagellating themselves, smacking their bare chests with their fists or metal chains – the bombs explode in Iraq, Pakistan and wherever the ancient front lines between Sunnis and Shias are still fermenting with tension.
This year two venues were added to the roll call of carnage: Kabul and Mazar-i-Sherif in Afghanistan.
It is strange how the long and bloody modern history of Afghanistan has been devoid of such sectarian acts, or at least none that have registered during decades of brutal civil war, occupation and Taliban insurgency.
Ethnic warfare is the norm, with Pashtuns massacring Tajics, Uzbeks massacring Pashtuns and all massacring the Hazara. In Afghanistan it is also true, however, that sectarian and ethnic lines sometimes mix.
Ethnic warfare doesn't mean that Afghanistan is sectarian free. Killing one's historic enemy is always done more viciously when performed in the name of superior deities.
Were the Hazara killed just because the other ethnic groups thought of them as inferior, or because they were Shia?
To hear the Taliban condemn the bombing suggests it was the work of more radical elements. Indeed a spokesman for an obscure Pakistani extremist group called Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami, which is linked to al-Qaida, has claimed responsibility.
Nevertheless, in the northern Tajic Shia villages in Takhar province and the Hazara mountains fingers will doubtless point at the Taliban. People there have not forgotten the Taliban massacres of the 1990s and the fear and anxieties they brought will doubtless resurface.
But will the bombing ignite a Sunni-Shia civil war in Afghanistan? Probably not, but it will deepen ethnic hatred and raise fears of a post-US occupation conflict.