A suicide bombing in the capital of Afghanistan on Saturday killed 80 people and injured more than 230 others, many of whom were taking part in a political demonstration, authorities said. He ordered a commission be set up to investigate the incident and described the attack as a clear effort to divide Shiites and Sunnis.
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Meanwhile, the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Islamic State has been known to carry out brutal attacks against Shiites in Iraq and Syria, but this is the first attack they have claimed in Kabul against an ethnic minority.
The claim by ISIS acknowleding responsibility behind the attack comes as the loyalists of the terror group have been attempting to expand foothold in the country but are mainly confined in the remote districts of eastern Nangarhar province.
Mohammad Ismail Kawousi, a spokesman for the ministry of public health, said at least 29 dead and 142 wounded had been taken to nearby hospitals but the numbers may change.
At least 231 people were wounded in the attack.
The government had received intelligence that an attack on the march could take place, and had warned the organizers, a spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani told The Associated Press.
The Taliban, who are in the middle of their annual summer offensive and are more powerful than the Daesh group, strongly denied any involvement in the attack.
“We were asked by the officials of the Enlighten Movement [who organized the demonstration] not to bury the dead bodies for a while, but we did it anyway”, Rezaee said.
“This heinous attack was made all the more despicable by the fact that it targeted a peaceful demonstration”, the White House said. That the minority Hazaras have mounted a strong demand for rerouting the Tutap power line reflects well on Afghanistan.
Police said one of the attackers successfully detonated his explosives, while the second one only managed to defectively explode himself. The protest leaders said the government remained rife with “systematic bias” against the Hazaras and had routed the electricity transmission line elsewhere, depriving the central Afghan region not only of electricity, but also of the roads and other infrastructure that would come with it.
Afghan policemen keep watch at the demonstration, before the blasts occurred. It was the deadliest attack in Kabul since December 2001.
Hazaras were demistrating against Government plans for a major electicity line from Turkmenistan to Kabul, but bypassing Bamiyan, which is a predominantly Hazara province.
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The senior United Nations official also conveyed his deep condolences on behalf of the United Nations system in the country to the families of the victims and a speedy recovery of the injured.
