At least 80 people were killed and 231 injured Saturday when suicide bombers attacked a large demonstration in the Afghan capital of Kabul, according to the Afghan Interior Ministry.
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Islamic State jihadists claimed responsibility for twin explosions July 23 that ripped through crowds of Shiite Hazaras in Kabul, killing at least 61 people and wounding 207 others in apparently their deadliest attack in the Afghan capital. If the claim proves true, it will be the first by the extremists in the Afghan capital, and one of the deadliest in Afghanistan since the Taliban launched their insurgency in 2001.
If confirmed as the work of Islamic State, the attack, among the most deadly since the USA -led campaign to oust the Taliban in 2001, would represent a major escalation for a group hitherto largely confined to the eastern province of Nangarhar.
“We had intelligence over recent days and it was shared with the demonstration organisers, we shared our concerns because we knew that terrorists wanted to bring sectarianism to our community”, he said.
The May march was attended by Hazara political leaders, who were notable by their absence Saturday.
Islamic State, also known as Isis, claimed responsibility for the attack, the group’s Amaq news agency reported.
The group had gathered, chanting “death to discrimination”, in protest of the government’s decision to a 500kV power transmission line from Turkmenistan to Kabul power line would no longer pass through the provinces of Bamiyan and Wardak, which contain large Hazara populations.
The attack represents a major escalation for IS, which so far has largely been confined to the eastern province of Nangarhar.
President Ashraf Ghani declared Sunday a day of national mourning. None of the organizers could be immediately reached for comment. The ministry’s deputy spokesman, Najib Danish, said the blast was the biggest in Afghanistan since 2001, when the Taliban launched their brutal insurgency after they were toppled by the 2001 US invasion.
“I have ordered the attorney general to set up a commission to investigate this incident”.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday strongly condemned the blast in Kabul that left 61 people dead.
The Taliban issued a statement denying involvement in Saturday’s attack, describing it as an attempt by IS to “ignite civil war”.
The explicit reference to the Hazara’s Shi’ite religious affiliation also represents a menacing departure for Afghanistan, where the bloody sectarian rivalry between Sunni and Shi’ites typical of Iraq has been relatively rare, despite decades of war. That attack was linked to a Pakistani militant group.
The commander of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Gen. John Nicholson condemned the attack.
“I saw tens of people laying down in blood around me and hundreds of people running away from the scene”, said Fatima Faizi, an Afghan freelance journalist. The original plan routed the line through the Hazara heartland of Bamiyan province, but was changed in 2013 by the previous Afghan government.
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The protesters were demanding a planned power line be rerouted through their poverty-stricken Bamyan province to ensure electricity in the relatively isolated area west of Kabul. They are considered the poorest of the country’s ethnic groups, and say they suffer pervasive discrimination.
