So-called Islamic State has said it was behind an attack on a protest march in the Afghan capital Kabul that killed 80 people and wounded 230.
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“I will get revenge on those who shed the blood of our citizens”, said Ghani.
“I have directed a special commission and the attorney general to investigate the incident and find those responsible”, he said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blasts, which came some three weeks after a suicide bomber killed dozens of people in an attack on newly graduated police cadets that was claimed by the Taliban.
If indeed carried out by the Islamic State, known as Daesh in Afghanistan, it would be the first major urban attack in that country by the radical Sunni Muslim terrorist group and could signal its first deliberate effort to target Afghanistan’s Shiite minority, which it views as infidel.
The IS group has had a presence in Afghanistan for the past year, mainly in the eastern province of Nangarhar along the Pakistani border.
Kawoosi said numerous injured were in “serious condition” and expected the death toll to rise.
An Interior Ministry statement said 80 people had been killed and 231 wounded, with local hospitals straining to cope with those being brought in. He reiterated an attack deliberately targeting a large, concentrated group of civilians amounts to a war crime. “The government has to change the route or protests will continue for weeks”.
Hazaras account for about 15 percent of Afghanistan’s population, estimated at around 30 million, and often complain of discrimination.
In the hours after the attack, details of casualties were unclear, but some security forces seemed to have been among the killed.
Two suicide bombers had attempted to target the demonstrators, but one of them was shot by police before he could detonate his explosives, according to Haroon Chakhansuri, a spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the blast. A presidential spokesman told The Associated Press that the government had received intelligence warning of an attack and had warned the organizers.
The protesters were demanding that the construction of an electrical transmission line from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Kabul be rerouted through their province of Bamyan, which is not now connected to Afghanistan’s central electricity grid.
President Ashraf Ghani addressed the nation and condemned the attack that also claimed the life of at least one journalist, said Tolo News.
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It was the second march held by members of the Hazara minority against the current route of a multi-million-dollar regional electricity line. The original plan routed the line through Bamiyan province, in the central highlands, where most of the country’s Hazaras live.
