But Amaq news – which has been linked to the Islamic State terrorist group – announced two fighters wearing explosive belts are responsible. Hazara protesters had marched and gathered there in the latest of several large peaceful protests demanding that the government undertake a large power project to bring electricity to Bamiyan province, a Hazara-majority region in north-central Afghanistan.
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Hazaras make up most of Afghanistan’s Shiite minority – and the Islamic State group considers Shiite Muslims apostates.
The attack targeting the protesters was quickly claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), a hardline group with a history of targeting the Hazara people.
At least 231 people were wounded in the attack.
Police have been moving trucks and containers into the city overnight Friday to block roads and prevent marchers reaching the city center or the presidential palace. The social media is loaded with blood donation requests for the poorly resourced hospitals in the city. Afghan security forces have been mainly focused on countering a resurgent Taliban threat across the country, though ISIS has been able to pick off recruits disgruntled with both the Taliban and al-Qaida. “One of them was shot by the police”, he told AP.
Ghani released a statement condemning the blast.
The attack was described by the top United Nations official in Afghanistan as a “war crime”. The agency carried an ISIS statement, calling it an attack on Shi’ites.
They sought to protest against the fact that the 500-kilovolt power transmission line from Turkmenistan to Kabul would not pass through the Bamyan and Wardak provinces, which have large Hazara populations.
Saturday’s protest follows a similar demonstration in May, which drew tens of thousands of people. Among the wounded was a protest leader and member of Parliament, Ahmed Behzad, witnesses said.
At the height of the march, demonstrators chanted slogans against President Ashraf Ghani and chief executive Abdullah Abdullah, shouted “death to discrimination” and “all Afghans are equal”.
Daud Naji, from the Enlighten Movement that arranged the protest, said the government told them that there was a “heightened risk” of attack, and that they had cancelled nine of the 10 planned routes.
Leaders of the marches have said the rerouting was evidence of bias against the Hazara community.
“Those are my cousin’s sandals”, said Sayed Mohammad as he stood in a crowd of people looking for anything familiar among the remnants spread out by authorities on an Afghan flag in the Dasht-e-Barchi area of Kabul where the funerals will take place.
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The Hazaras have only in the past decade tried to shake off a long history of oppression.
