Angry demonstrations sealed some of the area around the square, and prevented police and other security forces from entering. “The third attacker was gunned down by security forces”.
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At least 80 people have been killed and over 230 others injured after two suicide bombers detonated explosives into a crowd of people in Kabul.
“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.
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 protestors briefly tried to force their way into the presidential palace.
The organizers could not be immediately contacted for comment on Chakhansuri’s statement. It was the first Islamic State attack on Kabul and the worst since a Taliban insurgency began 15 years ago.
IS has a presence in eastern Afghanistan but this is the first time it has admitted carrying out attacks in the capital.
The Afghan government is now in the middle of an operation backed by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation airstrikes against IS in Nangarhar, after Ghani earlier this year claimed that the group had been defeated.
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.
Spokesmen for the Islamic State quickly claimed responsibility for the attack at a traffic circle jammed with demonstrators, according to Afghan media.
He declared a day of national mourning and ordered the authorities to use all available resources to help the victims.
The Interior Ministry announced a nationwide 10-day ban on protests due to security reasons after the attack. The move could be aimed at controlling any outbreaks of sectarian animosity.
More than 200 were wounded according to the Ministry of Interior, with citizens lining up outside hospitals in the capital Kabul to donate blood. The site of the attack, which Ghani renamed as “Martyr’s Square”, remained littered with scorched metal, charred flesh and personal items including shoes, ID cards and protest banners with messages such as “Don’t eliminate us”. That attack was linked to a Pakistani militant group. The U.S embassy in Kabul also issued a condemnation. Mullah Mohammad Hassan Rasat said the Hazara people felt a deep sense of injustice and anger that the government had not kept its election promise to ensure that development was equal for all Afghan ethnic groups.
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The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) condemned the attack. “This despicable crime targeted citizens peacefully exercising their fundamental human rights”, said a statement released by Ban’s spokesperson. 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. 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.
