Bomber at Kabul voter centre leaves 57 dead and 100 injured
● IS suicide attack targets civilians registering for national ID cards
An Islamic State suicide bomber has attacked a voter registration centre in the Afghan capital Kabul, killing 57 people and wounding more than 100 others.
Public health ministry spokesman Wahid Majro said that among 57 who were killed in the attack, 22 were women and eight were children.
Majro added that 119 people were wounded in the attack, among them 17 children and 52 women.
General Daud Amin, the Kabul police chief, said the suicide bomber targeted civilians who were registering for national identification cards.
The large explosion echoed across the city, shattering windows miles away from the attack site and damaging several nearby vehicles.
Police blocked all roads to the blast site, with only ambulances allowed in. Local TV stations broadcast live footage of hundreds of distraught locals gathered at nearby hospitals seeking word about loved ones.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement carried by its Aamaq news agency, saying it had targeted Shi’ite “apostates”.
The attack comes almost a month after another deadly attack by IS in which a suicide bomber carried out an attack near a Shi’ite shrine in Kabul that targeted people celebrating the Persian new year. That attack killed 31 people and wounded 65 others.
President Ashraf Ghani said “terrorist attacks” will not prevent people from participating in upcoming parliamentary elections.
Afghanistan will hold parliamentary elections in October and voter registration started a week ago.
Last week, three police officers guarding voter registration centres in two Afghan provinces were killed by militants.
Afghan security forces have struggled to prevent attacks by the local Islamic State affiliate as well as the more firmly established Taliban since the US and Nato concluded their combat mission at the end of 2014.
Both groups regularly carry out attacks, with the Taleban usually targeting the government and security forces and IS targeting the country’s Shi’ite minority.
Both groups want a strict form of Islamic rule in Afghanistan and are opposed to democratic elections.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, at least five people were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the northern Baghlan province.
Zabihullah Shuja, a spokesman for the provincial police chief, said four other people were wounded in yesterday’s blast in Puli Khomri, the province’s capital.
The Taleban routinely target security forces and government officials with roadside bombs, which often end up killing civilians.
In the northern Balkh prov- ince, a district police chief died of his wounds after being shot on Saturday during an exchange of gunfire with insurgents, according to Sher Jan Durrani, spokesman for the provincial police chief. He said around a dozen insurgents were also killed in the battle.
When the Islamic State group first appeared in Afghanistan its ranks were mostly culled from among the most ferocious of Pakistani Taleban from Pakistan’s Bajaur tribal region, driven out by a military offensive, as well as from among disgruntled Taleban, who were frustrated with a leadership reigning in its violence and considering negotiations to end fighting.
At its outset, the Islamic State was mostly confined to eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, but in recent years it has gained ground in the north and northeast of Afghanistan.
Their ranks quickly swelled with Uzbek fighters, many of whom were driven out of Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal region by a military offensive.