The domestic Taliban insurgency has carried out numerous bombings and other attacks in the capital over the past several years.
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“We were holding a peaceful demonstration when I heard a bang and then everyone was escaping and yelling”, said Sabira Jan, a protester who witnessed the attack and saw bloodied bodies strewn across the ground. These citizens include members of the defense and security forces.
“I promise you, I will take revenge against the culprits”, Ghani said in a televised address after the attack.
He said the Enlighten Movement wished to have its own representatives, as well as others from global human rights organizations, involved in a commission Ghani has established to investigate the incident.
The Taliban’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in an earlier email that his insurgent group was not responsible for the blast.
An Afghan man weeps outside a hospital after a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, on July 23, 2016.
The bombing, which struck near a major Shi’ite shrine, also wounded at least 29 people, the officials said.
So-called Islamic State (IS), the Sunni Muslim militant group, has said it was behind Saturday’s attack on members of the Shia Muslim Hazara minority. Most of the population is Sunni.
“Two fighters of the Islamic State detonated their explosive belts in a gathering of Shias in…”
The attack, described by the top U.N. official in Afghanistan as a “war crime”, drew a shocked reaction from across the world, with condemnation and offers of support from countries including Russian Federation and the United States.
Saturday’s strike appears to be the deadliest in months to hit Afghanistan. “We strongly condemn the actions of Afghanistan’s enemies of peace and remain firmly committed to supporting our Afghan partners and the National Unity Government”.
About 9,800 US troops are in Afghanistan.
Demonstrators gathered near Kabul University, several kilometers from the main government area, waving Afghan flags and chanting slogans like “Justice!”
One of the suicide bombers was shot by the police, he told AP.
He says he the president will meet leaders of the Hazara demonstrators later today.
Senior Hazara leaders were notably absent despite having attended a similar protest in May.
At least 61 people were killed and more than 200 wounded Saturday when attackers detonated explosives amid a huge crowd of peaceful protesters in the Afghan capital, majority from the country’s Shiite ethnic Hazara minority, health and police officials said.
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The Ministry of Interior last night confirmed the death toll had risen to 80 and that over 230 people were wounded.
