Bombing atAfghan mosque kills 14
KABUL • A bomb blast inside a mosque in eastern Afghanistan that was being used as a voter registration centre killed at least 14 people and wounded 33, officials said on Sunday.
Talib Mangal, spokesman for the provincial governor in Khost, said that there was one female among those killed in the attack. “The blast happened while people were busy with prayers, meanwhile in another part of the mosque people had gathered to get their voter registration cards for the election,” he added.
Afghanistan plans to hold elections in October, the first since 2014.
Habib Shah Ansari, the provincial head of public health, also confirmed the toll from the attack in the city of Khost, the capital of the province of the same name.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied the group’s involvement. “We reject any kind of involvement in this incident,” he said.
Both the Taliban and a local affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant reject democratic elections and have targeted them in the past. ISIL is not known to have a presence in Khost, but has expanded its footprint into other areas in recent years.
Last month, an ISIL suicide bomber attacked a voter registration centre in Kabul, killing 60 people and wounding at least 130 others.
The Taliban and ISIL have launched a relentless wave of attacks since the start of the year, killing scores of civilians in the capital, Kabul, and elsewhere. Afghan security forces have struggled to combat the groups since the U.S. and NATO concluded their combat mission at the end of 2014, switching to a counterterrorism and support role.
Voter registration began on April 14, after voting cards issued in previous elections were invalidated because of widespread forgery. Citizens must now go to registration centres to have their national identity documents stamped to show that they can vote in the elections for the national parliament, planned for October.
The elections are three years behind the schedule mandated by the Afghan constitution. A disastrous and disputed presidential election in 2014 led to widespread disagreement among political parties about how to conduct elections, both for parliament this year and for the presidency in 2019.
Maliha Hassan, an election commissioner, said that 1.2 million Afghans had registered to vote so far, out of what is believed to be 14 million who are eligible. The registration process ends June 15.
“We don’t have a specific target for the number of people we expect to register,” Hassan told The New York Times. “Let’s wait until the end of the process and see how many people register.”