ISIS CLAIMS SUICIDE BOMB THAT KILLED 63 AT WEDDING
▶ More than 180 people were wounded in the blast at Dubai City wedding hall in west Kabul
ISIS yesterday claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack on a wedding hall in the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday. The claim – made on a website linked to the extremist group – said the bomber was a Pakistani militant.
Scores of people were killed and wounded when the bomber detonated his explosives.
Officials put the death toll at 63 in the attack shortly before midnight, with at least 182 injured. But those numbers could rise because a relative of the groom said 1,200 people had been invited to the wedding.
Afghan weddings are epic and vibrant affairs, with hundreds or often thousands of guests celebrating for hours in industrial-scale wedding halls in which men are usually segregated from women and children.
The explosion ripped through the Dubai City wedding hall on the capital’s western edge, a predominantly Shiite Hazara minority community.
Shiites are frequently targeted in Sunni-majority Afghanistan, particularly by ISIS, which is also active in Kabul.
The Taliban denied any involvement in the attack.
Before ISIS claimed responsibility for the bombing, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said yesterday that the Taliban could not escape blame for a barbaric suicide bomb attack.
“The Taliban cannot absolve themselves of blame for they provide a platform for terrorists,” Mr Ghani said on Twitter.
The bombing shattered a period of relative calm in the city. Mohammad Farhag, who had been at the wedding, said he had been in the women’s section when he heard a huge blast in the men’s area.
“Everyone ran outside shouting and crying,” he said. “For about 20 minutes the hall was full of smoke. Almost everyone in the men’s section is either dead or wounded.”
Two hours after the blast, he said bodies were still being removed from the hall.
A mobile phone video that swiftly went viral shortly after the attack showed one man outside the hall with bloodstains on his clothes, his voice breaking as he explained he was searching for his brothers.
A witness said the attacker set off the explosives near the stage where children had gathered. Gul Mohammad, who saw the blast, said everyone near by had been killed.
Interior Ministry spokesman Nusrat Rahimi said dozens of people were dead or wounded.
The bombing sent a wave of grief through a city grimly accustomed to atrocities.
“This heinous and inhumane attack is indeed a crime against humanity,” tweeted Afghanistan’s chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah.
“This was a wedding. Imagine two family groups gathered for a celebration now bearing such unimaginable, paralysing loss,” tweeted analyst Ahmad Shuja.
Insurgents have periodically struck Afghan weddings, which are seen as easy targets because they frequently lack rigorous security precautions.
On July 12, at least six people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a wedding ceremony in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar. ISIS, which has a growing footprint in the region, claimed responsibility for the blast.
On August 7, a Taliban car bomb aimed at Afghan security forces was detonated on the same road in a busy west Kabul neighbourhood, killing 14 people and wounding 145 – most of them women, children and other civilians.
Kabul’s huge, brightly lit wedding halls are centres 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?” Sediq Seddiqi, a spokesman for President Ghani, tweeted.
Wedding venues also serve as meeting places, and in November at least 55 people were killed when a suicide bomber sneaked into one being used by religious scholars and clerics to mark the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed.
The latest attack came a few days after the end of the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Adha, with Kabul residents visiting family and friends days before Afghanistan marks its 100th independence day on Monday.
The blast comes at a greatly uncertain time in Afghanistan as the United States and the Taliban near a deal to end almost 18 years of war. The US special envoy leading the talks, Zalmay Khalilzad, said the attack showed the need to accelerate efforts to reach an agreement with the Taliban, to help defeat ISIS.
The Afghan government has been sidelined from the discussions and presidential spokesman Mr Seddiqi said earlier on Saturday that his government was waiting to hear results of President Donald Trump’s meeting on Friday with his national security team about the negotiations. Top issues include a US troop withdrawal and Taliban guarantees not to let Afghanistan become a launch pad for global terrorist attacks.
Washington and Kabul are also reportedly in talks to define their ongoing relationship to reassure Afghan government allies that the US would not abandon the country.
While the Taliban this year pledged to do more to protect civilians, it continues to attack Afghan security forces and others in what is seen as an attempt to strengthen its position at the negotiating table.