BOMB KILLS 57 IN RAID ON KABUL ID CENTRE
▶ ISIS claims suicide blast at voter registration office, with 112 wounded
A suicide bomb claimed by ISIS killed dozens in a registration centre in Kabul yesterday, in the deadliest attack on preparations for parliamentary elections due this year.
The bomber detonated his explosive vest outside a school in the Dasht-e-Barchi area of Kabul, which was used as a centre for residents to sign up for the national identity cards they need to vote in the October elections.
The blast killed at least 57 people, including children, and wounded at least 112 more, said Wahid Majroh, spokesman for the Public Health Ministry.
The targeted area is largely populated by the Shiite Hazara minority, which has long been the target of militant groups in Afghanistan.
Locals described a scene of carnage at the blast site.
“I was at home when I heard a loud boom,” Haji Gulam Abbasi, 50, told The National.
“Because it came from the direction of the school, I ran towards there. My children and nephews were in the school at the time.
“The bomber had detonated himself very close to the school. I saw over 100 dead and injured people, many children among them.”
Six of his young relatives, aged between 6 and 17, were injured.
Mr Al Abbasi waited outside the Emergency War and Trauma Hospital in central Kabul after he searched for his children and nephews among the bodies at the registration centre, but only found one of them.
“I am not sure what state of health any of them are in,” a worried Mr Abbasi said.
At the hospital he was eventually reunited with the five others.
Fear quickly turned to anger in the Afghan capital. Mohammad Asif, whose cousin was also wounded victim in the attack, took aim at the government of President Ashraf Ghani.
“My cousin was working for the government to help them hold elections. But they are all fine and he is badly injured,” Mr Asif said, frustrated that not one Afghan leader had come to see the survivors.
“We are all dying every day, men, women and children. Why should we vote for them?”
The election has already been hampered by delays but Afghanistan’s allies say it should take place before a presidential election next year.
Another blast yesterday struck near a mosque in Pul-e-Khomri, the capital of the northern province of Baghlan, killing six people including three women and two children.
A local official said the roadside bomb was not aimed at an election registration centre at a mosque, but a survivor’s account differed.
“We were on our way to a funeral at the mosque when the bomb went off close to our vehicle,” Hussain Ali, one of the survivors told The National by phone, his voice still quivering.
“The mosque is a centre for voting registrations and bodies of victims are now lying there”.
Mr Ghani condemned both attacks as heinous.
Security will be a major concern for him and the Afghan troops who have struggled to curb militant attacks since American and Nato forces finished their combat mission in December 2014.
The Taliban and ISIS are opposed to democratic elections, wanting a hardline form of Sharia rule in the country.
ISIS has steadily increased its influence in Afghanistan and now poses as much of a threat as the more established Taliban, which the western coalition ousted from power in 2001.
The Taliban has also been blamed for mounting attacks on the Afghan election process.
Last week, Taliban-linked gunmen kidnapped three Afghan Independent Election Commission employees and two policemen in Ghor Province, central Afghanistan.
Mr Ghani launched voter registration on April 14, appealing to the Taliban leadership to take part in the country’s democratic process instead of waging insurgency.
But the militant group rejected the offer and has since attacked several voting registration centres across the country.
There are more than 7,000 centres to handle up to 10 million registrations. Forty-seven have remained closed, mostly in the north, because of the insecurity.
The Taliban have called for a boycott of the planned elections.
“There is no legitimacy of conducting elections in the presence of thousands of foreign troops in the country,” they said in a statement.
For the long-suffering residents of Kabul, it does not matter whether the Taliban or ISIS was responsible for yesterday’s suicide blast. They say an attack on the Afghan elections is an attack on the Afghan people.
“They are all the enemies of the people of Afghanistan,” an angry Mr Abbasi said. “They may go by different names but all of them drink from the same well.”
The greatest damage done by yesterday’s attack may not lie in the damaged streets of west Kabul, but in the country’s voting booths. Mr Abbasi will now reconsider his decision to vote.
“They have now attacked our children,” he said. “We live in fear of our lives. Even when we sleep we don’t know if we are safe.”