Afghans help an injured man after an explosion struck a protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, July 23, 2016.
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North Atlantic Treaty Organisation this month said the group’s influence was waning as it steadily lost territory, with fighters largely confined to two or three districts in the province from around nine in January.
Earlier this month, a delegation of U.S. senators that had visited Kabul, warned that the worldwide military mission in Afghanistan will fail if troop levels are reduced further, with potentially risky repercussions for the rest of the world.
Afghanistan marked a national day of mourning on Sunday, a day after at least 80 people were killed by a suicide bomber attack on a peaceful demonstration.
The loyalists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group have released photographs which purportedly shows the two suicide bombers who attacked a mass demonstration in Kabul.
The attack specifically targeted the Hazaras, a Shia minority in Afghanistan, a group that’s faced discrimination in Afghanistan.
“The horrific attack on a group of peaceful protestors in Kabul demonstrates the utter disregard that armed groups have for human life”, Amnesty International said in a statement.
The Islamic State group is claiming responsibility for the deadly bombing of a protest march in the Afghan capital, Kabul. They were demanding that this Tutap line connecting Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan should pass through the Hazara-dominated Bamyan and Wardak provinces.
Earlier, Waheed Majroeh, the head of worldwide relations for the Ministry of Public Health, said the death toll was likely to rise “as the condition of numerous injured is very serious”.
An Afghan intelligence source said an IS commander named Abo Ali had sent three jihadists from the Achen district of Nangarhar province to carry out the Kabul attack.
Another 231 people were wounded, some seriously, in the bomb attack on a march by members of the ethnic Hazara community, who are predominantly Shi’ite Muslims.
Roadblocks that had been set up overnight to prevent the marchers accessing the city center or the presidential palace hampered efforts to transfer some of the wounded to hospitals, witnesses said. In one area, angry demonstrators chanted slogans against the government and threw stones at security forces.
In a live television address yesterday, Ghani says “I promise you I will take revenge against the culprits”.
“The death toll has jumped to 80 and 230 others have been wounded”, Health Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ismail Kawoosi said, adding that the toll could rise further.
Police said one of the attackers successfully detonated his explosives, while the second one only managed to defectively explode himself.
The organizers could not be immediately contacted for comment on Chakhansuri’s statement. Both Ghani and the government’s chief executive officer, Abdullah Abdullah, issued statements condemning the attack.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned the terrorist attack.
The UN mission in Afghanistan has described the attack as a “war crime”.
Saturday’s protest over the route of a multimillion dollar power line, which demonstrators wanted to re-route through two provinces with large Hazara populations, had become a touchstone for a wider sense of injustice.
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Saturday’s protest follows a similar demonstration in May, which drew tens of thousands of people.
