40 killed in IS suicide attack on Kabul Shia centre
KABUL: Suicide bombers stormed a Shia cultural centre and news agency in the Afghan capital yesterday, killing more than 40 people and wounding scores, many of them students attending a conference.
Islamic State said in an online statement that it was responsible for the attack, the latest in a series the movement has claimed on Shia targets here.
Waheed Majrooh, a spokesman for the Public Health Ministry, said 41 people, including four women and two children, had been killed and 84 wounded, most suffering from burns.
The attack occurred during a morning panel discussion on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Sunni-majority Afghanistan at the Tabian Social and Cultural Centre, witnesses said.
The floors of the centre, at the basement level, were covered in blood as wailing survivors and relatives picked through the de- bris, while windows of the news agency, on the second floor, were all shattered.
“We were shocked and didn’t feel the explosion at first but we saw smoke coming up from be- low,” said Ali Reza Ahmadi, a journalist who was sitting in his office above the centre when the attack took place.
“Survivors were coming out. I saw one boy with cuts to his feet and others with burns all over their faces. About 10 minutes after the first explosion, there was another one outside on the street and then another one,” he said. Reuters