Air strike prevents truck blast in city
A BRUTAL attack claimed by Islamic State has devastated a Shiite Muslim cultural centre in the Afghan capital Kabul, killing at least 41 people and wounding another 84.
The IS-linked Aamaq news agency said three bombs were used in the ferocious assault. One suicide bomber who blew himself up inside the centre, where scores of people had gathered to mark the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union.
Other explosions occurred outside the two-storey building, which also houses the pro-Iranian Afghan Voice news agency, which may also have been a target in the attack.
Earlier, interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said an unknown number of suicide attackers set off an explosion outside the centre before carrying out an attack inside.
In its statement to Aamaq, IS said the centre was being funded by Iran and used to propagate Shiite beliefs.
Ali Reza Ahmadi, a journalist with Afghan Voice, said he had been in his office when the explosion shattered the building.
He jumped from his secondstorey office to the roof of the building, where he saw flames from the basement.
“I jumped from the roof towards the basement, yelling at people to get water to put out the fire,” he said.
Shiite leader Abdul Hussain Ramazandada said witnesses reported that at least one suicide bomber sneaked into the event and was sitting among the participants.
He exploded his device and as people fled more explosions occurred, he said.
At nearby Istiqlal Hospital, director Mohammed Sabir Nasib said the emergency room was overwhelmed with dead and wounded. Additional doctors and nurses were called in to help and at the height of the tragedy more than 50 doctors and nurses were working to save the wounded, most of whom suffered severe burns.
The cultural centre is located in a poor area of the Shiite-dominated Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood. The centre is a simple structure surrounded by sundried mud homes where some of Kabul’s poorest live.
A senior member of the Shiite cleric council, Mohammad Asif Mesbah, said the centre may have been targeted because it houses the deeply pro-Iranian Afghan Voice news agency.
Its owner Sayed Eissa Hussaini Mazari is a strong proponent of Iran and his publication is dominated by Iranian news. Iran is a majority Shiite Muslim nation.
The local IS affiliate has carried out several attacks targeting Shiites in Afghanistan.
IS issued a warning earlier this year following an attack on the Iraqi embassy in Kabul vowing to target Afghanistan’s Shiites.
Since then, IS has taken credit for at least two attacks on Shiite mosques in Kabul and one in the western city of Herat, killing scores of worshippers.
The IS affiliate, made up of Sunni extremists, view Shiites as apostates.
IS in Afghanistan is a toxic mix of Uzbek militants belonging to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan who broke with the Taliban, as well as disenchanted insurgents who left the much larger and more well-established Taliban.
An air strike in Somalia has killed four members of the al-Shabab extremist group and destroyed a vehicle carrying explosives near the capital, the US military said.
The air strike about 25 kilometres (15 miles) west of Mogadishu prevented the bomb from being used against residents, the statement from the US Africa Command said.
Al-Shabab was blamed for a massive truck bombing in Mogadishu in October that killed 512 people. The US has carried out 35 drone strikes in Somalia this year against al-Shabab.