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President declares day of mourning after bomb attack
On Saturday, Afghan President had said he was deeply saddened over the incident.
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Reflecting the often unfocused anger that erupted after the attack, witnesses saw some demonstrators turning on police who arrived in the aftermath of the explosion and some even blamed the government for the attacks. The Hazaras are Shiite Muslims, most Afghans are Sunnis.
Afghanistan is today observing a day of national mourning following the suicide bombing attack.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday announced that the Dehmazang Circle, where the tragic twin blast took place during Saturday’s peace protest, would be renamed as Martyrs Square.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the blast, which comes in the middle of the Taliban’s annual summer offensive.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) condemned the attack.
At least 231 people were wounded in the attack. The worst previous attack against the Hazara was in December 2011, when more than 55 people were killed in Kabul during Ashura. Most of the population is Sunni.
IS has a presence in eastern Afghanistan but this is the first time it has admitted carrying out attacks in the capital.
The commander of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation armed forces in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Gen. John Nicholson, condemns the bomb attack on a protest march in Kabul that killed at least 61 people.
“This attack is particularly heinous because it targeted civilians as they exercised their rights to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression”, the statement read.
The attack is one of the deadliest in Afghanistan since the Taliban launched a violent insurgency in 2001.
The death toll was the highest of any terror attack in the capital after more than a decade of fighting between Taliban militants and Afghan and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces.
He said Ghani planned to meet with the organizers later on Saturday.
Waheed Majroeh, the head of global relations for the Ministry of Public Health, said that 31 people had been confirmed dead, and another 160 wounded.
A surge in the number of attacks worldwide linked to the Islamic State group has been seen as an attempt to distract from a string of battlefield losses suffered by the extremists in Syria and Iraq, where the borders of their self-styled caliphate are shrinking.
Officials said, two suicide bombers detonated explosive belts at a large gathering of demonstrators of the local Shia Hazara Minority in Deh Mazang square on Saturday.
Hazaras are predominantly Shiite Muslims, and IS views all Shiites as apostates.
A truck, used by some leaders of a protest march, is damaged after a deadly explosion that struck a protest march by ethnic Hazaras, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, July 23, 2016.
Thousands of members of the Hazara minority were protesting over a new power line, saying its route bypasses provinces where many of them live.
Seddiq Sediqqi, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, says police were working to confirm initial reports of the blast.
Violence had been feared at what was the second march over the power line issue.
Ambulances were struggling to reach the scene as authorities overnight had blocked key intersections with stacked shipping containers to prevent demonstrators from reaching the presidential palace.
The last protest in May attracted thousands of people and shut down the central business district.
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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.