Daesh terrorist group claimed responsibility for twin explosions Saturday that ripped through crowds of Shiite Hazaras in Kabul, killing at least 80 people and wounding 231 others in their first major attack in the Afghan capital.
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Officials say numerous injured are in very serious condition and the death toll is likely to rise.
An attack on a protest march by Afghanistan’s minority Hazara community in Kabul has killed dozens of people, Afghani officials say.
The demonstrators were demanding changes to the route of a planned multi-million dollar power transmission line. Hazaras, most of whom are Shiite Muslims, were especially persecuted during the extremist Sunni Taliban 1996-2001 regime.
The transmission line, meant to provide secure electricity to 10 provinces is part of the so-called TUTAP project backed by the Asia Development Bank, linking energy-rich states of Central Asia with Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said he was “deeply saddened” by the massacre. 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.
On June 20 in the Afghan capital, a suicide bomber killed 14 Nepali security contractors who worked for the Canadian embassy. Pakistan is always ready to help the Afghan government in fighting terrorism.
Mr Chakhansuri revealed government officials warned the march organisers that they risked attack, saying: “We knew that terrorists wanted to bring sectarianism to Kabul, and cause splits within our community”.
It was attended by Hazara political leaders, whose absence was noticed on Saturday.
The protest march was largely peaceful before the explosion struck as the demonstrators sought to march on the presidential palace, waving flags and chanting slogans such as “death to discrimination”. The main plan directed the line through Bamiyan province, in the central highlands, an area where most of the country’s Hazaras reside.
The minority Hazara are of Mongolian and Central Asian Origin. Zabiullah Mujahid, the group’s spokesperson, described the attack as “grim” and added that the Taliban condemns any act that reinforces ethnic and religious divisions in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s government had received intelligence information that assured an attack was going to take place, confirmed a spokesman for the Afghan President to the Associated Press.
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They are seen as the poorest of the country’s ethnic groups, and often make complaints of discrimination. Bamiyan has suffered from poverty, although it is rather peaceful and could possibly be a tourist destination.
