According to UNAMA, one suicide attacker detonated his device among the demonstrators while police reportedly shot and killed a second attacker.
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The wounded overwhelmed city hospitals, officials said, with reports emerging of blood shortages and urgent appeals for donors circulating on social media.
Angry demonstrators sealed some of the area around the square, and prevented police and other security forces from entering. These citizens include members of the defense and security forces.
The bombings, which the United Nations denounced as a “war crime”, mark the deadliest single attack in Kabul since the Taliban were toppled from power in a 2001 US-led invasion, the interior ministry said.
– March 18, 2015: Three militants attack the National Bardo Museum in the Tunisian capital, killing 22 people, mostly tourists.
The Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the bombing, which struck a demonstration by Afghanistan’s ethnic Hazara community.
President Ashraf Ghani announced a national day of mourning after the attack, claimed by Islamic State. The bombing raises concerns over IS’s growing capabilities in Afghanistan. In Nangarhar they have fought Taliban fighters as well as Afghan security forces, sometimes seizing control of whole districts in the east of the province.
IS fighters detonated explosive belts amidst a “gathering of Shi’ites” in Deh Mazang, said the group’s Amaq News Agency. Bamiyan province, where most Hazara people live in the central highlands, is poverty stricken, though it is largely peaceful and has potential as a tourist destination.
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”.
Taliban militants denied any involvement.
“I promise you, I will take revenge against the culprits”, Ghani said in a televised address after the attack. The move could be aimed at controlling any outbreaks of sectarian animosity.
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. The perpetrators have been closely linked to the group that carried out attacks in Paris some four months earlier.
The Taliban have been waging a vicious insurgency against the Kabul government for 15 years, since their regime was overthrown by the US invasion in 2001.
Pakistan also strongly condemned the dastardly terrorist acts in Kabul that resulted into the loss of a number of precious human lives and left several others injured.
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In a statement issued by the organization, it said the two explosions occurred at Dehmazang Circle in Kabul city “targeted a peaceful demonstration, causing horrendous levels of civilian harm”. “We would never take part in any incident that divides the Afghan people”, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.
