At least 80 people were killed and more than 200 injured Saturday when a suicide bomber struck the Afghan city of Kabul during a demonstration held by a Shiite minority group.
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“I promise you that I will avenge the blood of our loved ones on the perpetrators of this crime, wherever they are”, Ghani said, declaring Sunday a national day of mourning.
“I gave orders for the formation of a special commission to be headed by the country’s attorney general that will include government and non-government personalities for the comprehensive investigations of the incident”.
The IS-linked Amaq news agency said two fighters “detonated explosive belts at a gathering of Shia” in Kabul. It was the first Islamic State attack on Kabul and the worst since a Taliban insurgency began 15 years ago. The group has strug-gled to establish a foothold in Afghanistan in the past year, confining its activity to the moun-tainous eastern regions bordering Pakistan.
At least 231 people at the protest were wounded.
Footage on Afghan television and photographs posted on social media showed a scene of horror and carnage, with numerous bodies and body parts spread across the square. The agency carried an ISIS statement, calling it an attack on Shi’ites. The demonstration was targeted by two suicide bombers, though one of them was taken down by the Police before the explosives attached to his body could be detonated. “We stand with the Afghan people against terror”, Clinton said Saturday on Twitter.
In November, thousands of Hazara marched through Kabul to protest at government inaction after seven members of their community were beheaded by Islamist militants and several protesters briefly tried to force their way into the presidential palace.
Senior Hazara politicians were absent from Saturday’s march and President Ashraf Ghani’s office said the organisers had been warned to call it off after intelligence indicated that an attack was likely. The last one in May attracted tens of thousands of people and shut down the central business district. They had gathered in the west of the city to demand that a proposed electricity transmission line be routed through the Hazara-dominated central province of Bamian.
That route was changed in 2013 by the previous Afghan government.
As a result of the road closures, officials said, it was hard for victims to be transported to major hospitals, and smaller clinics and health facilities near the blast site were overwhelmed.
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The demonstrators had gathered in a protest organised by the Enlightening Movement over the planned route of the 500kV power line project that the Afghanistan government intends to roll out.
