These stunning images show the thousands who turned out for the burial of Afghanistan's powerful Vice President Mohammad Qasim Fahim, who died at the age of 57 of natural causes.
Thousands crammed onto the hilltops and streets to observe the funeral procession and burial of the influential Vice President, which was attended by many senior dignitaries, as well as President Hamid Karzai.
President Karzai praised the Vice President's service to the country, and called his death a 'great loss to the nation'.
After the funeral service at the Presidential palace under tight security, an Afghan military helicopter transported the coffin containing Fahim's body to the burial site atop a hill near Kabul, and soon after his burial, mortars were fired in salute.
Several thousand people attended the procession and subsequent burial, and mourners laid Fahim's body to rest at a graveyard just outside Kabul.
Local media reported he died of a heart attack following a later life suffering from diabetes.
Fahim was a leading commander in the alliance that fought the Taliban, but in his life had been accused of being a ruthless, brutal and corrupt warlord, who had committed human rights abuses during the civil war in Afghanistan in the 1990s between the Mujaheddin factions that were ruling the country following the ousting of the Soviet Union.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578458/Amazing-images-epic-turnout-biblical-proportions-thousands-gather-Afghanistan-burial-Vice-President-near-Kabul.html#ixzz2virHhcem
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