Suicide attack at wedding hall kills 63 in Afghanistan

The death toll from a late-night suicide bombing at a crowded wedding party in the Afghan capital rose to at least 63 on Sunday, including women and children, officials said. It was the deadliest attack in Kabul this year.

Another 182 civilians were wounded in the Saturday night explosion, government spokesman Feroz Bashari said. Interior Ministry spokesman Nusrat Rahimi confirmed the casualty toll as families began to bury the dead. Some helped to dig graves with their bare hands.

Kabul residents were outraged as there appears to be no end to violence even as the United States and the Taliban say they are nearing a deal to end their 18-year conflict, America's longest war.

The Taliban condemned the attack as "forbidden and unjustifiable" and denied any involvement, leading many to suspect the Islamic State group's local affiliate in Afghanistan in the attack. Both the Taliban and IS have carried largescale attacks in the Afghan capital in the past.

The blast occurred in a western Kabul neighborhood that is home to many of the country's minority Shiite Hazara community. IS has claimed responsibility for many attacks targeting Shiites in the past.

The bomber detonated his explosives near the stage where musicians were playing and "all the youths, children and all the people who were there were killed," said eyewitness Gul Mohammad.

Ahmad Omid, a survivor, said about 1,200 guests had been invited to the wedding of his father's cousin.

"I was with the groom in the other room when we heard the blast and then I couldn't find anyone," he said. "Everyone was lying all around the hall."

Amid the carnage were bloodcovered chairs, crushed music speakers and a pile of abandoned shoes.

The blast at the hall, known as Dubai City wedding hall, shattered a period of relative calm in Kabul. On Aug. 7, a Taliban car bomb aimed at Afghan security forces detonated his explosives on the same road, killing 14 people and wounding 145 — most of them women, children and other civilians.

Kabul's huge, brightly lit wedding halls are centers of community life in a city weary of decades of war, with thousands of dollars spent on a single evening.

"Devastated by the news of a suicide attack inside a wedding hall in Kabul. A heinous crime against our people; how is it possible to train a human and ask him to go and blow himself (up) inside a wedding?!!" presidential spokesman Sediq Seddiqi said in a Twitter post.

Messages of shock poured in on

Sunday. "Such acts are beyond condemnation," the European Union mission to Afghanistan said. "An act of extreme depravity," U.S. Ambassador John Bass said.

The wedding halls also serve as meeting places, and in November, at least 55 people were killed when a suicide bomber sneaked into a Kabul wedding hall where hundreds of Muslim religious scholars and clerics had gathered to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. The Taliban denied involvement in that attack, and IS did not claim responsibility.

Saturday night's explosion came a few days after the end of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, with Kabul residents visiting family and friends, and just ahead of Afghanistan's 100th Independence Day on Monday. The city, long familiar with checkpoints and razor wire, has been under heavier security ahead of the event.