37 die as suicide attacker targets school in Kabul
KABUL: At least 37 people, the majority of them students, were killed when a suicide blast ripped through a school in a Shiite area of Kabul yesterday, officials said, the latest assault on Afghanistan’s war-weary capital. Around a dozen ambulances rushed to the Mawoud education centre in the western part of the city, where students and relatives described pulling bloodied victims from the rubble of a classroom that had been crowded with teenagers preparing to go to university.
“At around 4 pm this afternoon, a suicide attacker who had strapped explosives to his body detonated himself inside the Mawoud
education centre,” police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai said. “In the explosion 37 people were killed, more than 40 injured,” he said, adding that the “absolute majority” of them had been students. He warned the toll could rise. Other officials have put it at as high as 48 people killed, with scores more injured. It was not clear how many students were at the centre at the time of the attack.
One witness, another student named Ali Ahmad, said as many as 100 students may have been inside when the bomber struck, but officials have not yet confirmed the figure. “My brother has been injured, possibly killed, because he wasn’t breathing when I took his bloodied body out of the bloody, burning classroom,” one man, who gave his name as Assadullah, said. He had been nearby when he heard the blast, and ran to the centre, he told AFP. His brother, Nusratullah, was around 17 years old, he said, sobbing over the phone. “He was a smart and energetic boy, top of his class,” Assadullah said. “Now... I am not sure he will survive.” There was no immediate
claim of responsibility for the attack, which was swiftly condemned by President Ashraf Ghani in a statement. Both the Taleban and the Islamic State group (IS) have carried out devastating, high-profile attacks in Kabul in recent months, but the Taleban quickly denied they were involved.
Grinding conflict
The assault underscores the price that ordinary Afghans have paid in the grinding conflict as the country reels from a recent upsurge in militant violence, including a massive, days-long Taleban onslaught on the eastern city of Ghazni. Afghan forces appeared to have finally pushed Taleban fighters from the strategic provincial capital yesterday, as shopkeepers and residents warily returned to the streets after days of intense ground fighting and US airstrikes. Security forces were on patrol and no militants were in sight in the centre of the shattered city, with fighting which began late Thursday seeming to have finally ceased.