The government has announced a ban on public protests for at least 10 days after Saturday’s demonstration, which was largely peaceful before the explosions tore through the crowds.
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At least 80 people were killed and many injured when suspected Islamic State suicide bombers targeted a mass demonstration in the Afghan capital on Saturday.
The jihadist terrorist group has been stepping up attacks worldwide – and most recently in Afghanistan – while losing territory in its self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
“Two fighters from Islamic State detonated explosive belts at a gathering of Shi’ites in the city of Kabul in Afghanistan”, said a brief statement on the group’s Amaq news agency.
The attack was the deadliest to hit Kabul in 15 years of civil war. He ordered a commission be set up to investigate the incident and described the attack as a clear effort to divide Shiites and Sunnis.
Yesterday’s attack in Kabul is one of the biggest attacks which the ISIS terrorist group claims credit as the Taliban group rejected hand in the attack.
Three weeks ago, two Taliban suicide bombers killed 34 people when they attacked a convoy of buses carrying newly graduated police officers in Kabul.
Dr. Waheed Majroeh, the head of global relations for the Ministry of Public Health, says Saturday that 207 people were also wounded by the blast, which was claimed by the Islamic State group. After the attack, officials intercepted information from Islamic State commanders in the Achin district, the group’s base in eastern Afghanistan where villagers have been terrorized for months, congratulating each other for the carnage, the security official said.
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”.
The U.S. and United Kingdom also condemned the attack, with the White House saying it was made “all the more despicable by the fact that it targeted a peaceful demonstration”.
The government had received intelligence that an attack could take place, and had warned the march organisers, a spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani told The Associated Press. Hazara protesters had marched and gathered there in the lastest of several large peaceful protests demanding that the government build a large power project to bring electricity to Bamiyan Province, a Hazara-majority region in north-central Afghanistan.
Hazara leaders in the ethnically divided nation lashed out at the Pashtun president, calling the decision prejudiced against the Hazaras, a community that has suffered a long history of oppression.
The so-called TUTAP power line is backed by the Asian Development Bank with involvement of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. As in the previous protests, the government had blocked major routes from West Kabul to the presidential palace and downtown Kabul, using shipping containers as well as lines of police.
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They also risk exacerbating ethnic tensions with other groups and provinces the government says would have to wait up to three years for power if the route were changed.
