Suicide bombing in Kabul claims 18 lives
Afghans say key al-ida commander slain; blasts elsewhere kill civilians, police
KABUL, Afghanistan — The death toll from the suicide attack Saturday in Afghanistan’s capital has risen to at least 18 killed and 57 people wounded, including students, the interior ministry said.
Afghan security officials separately announced Saturday that a senior al-Qaida commander had been killed in a recent operation in the country’s east.
Saturday’s explosion in the capital struck outside the Kawsar education center in a heavily Shiite neighborhood of western Kabul, Dasht-eBarchi.
Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber on foot who was stopped by security guards before he could enter the educational center and detonated his explosives at the entrance.
“Ambulances are still transferring the bodies,” said Abuzar Motaqi, head of the main hospital in the area. “Most of them are very young.”
According to Arian, the casualty toll may rise further as family members of victims of the suicide bombing are still searching at hospitals where the wounded have been taken.
No group claimed immediate responsibility for the bombing. The Taliban denied any connection to the attack.
In the area west of Kabul where the Kawsar education center is based, soft civilian targets such as learning centers, wedding halls and hospitals have been repeatedly attacked in recent years.
An Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility for a similar suicide attack at an education center in August 2018, in which 34 students were killed. Within Afghanistan, ISIS has conducted largescale attacks on minority Shiites, Sikhs and Hindus, whom it views as apostates.
Hundreds of Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan fled the country in September after a gunman loyal to the militant group killed 25 members of the shrinking community in Kabul.
Meanwhile, the Afghan intelligence service said in a tweet that special forces killed al-Qaida’s No. 2 commander for the Indian subcontinent, Abu Muhsin al-Masri, in a recent operation in eastern Ghazni. The agency did not immediately provide more details about the operation.
Al-Masri was listed among the most-wanted terrorists by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2018.
The U.S. signed a peace deal with the Taliban in February, opening up a path toward withdrawing American troops from the conflict. U.S. officials said the deal also aimed to refocus security efforts on fighting ISIS, which is a rival of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
There has been an upsurge in violence between Taliban and Afghan forces in the country recently, even as representatives from the two warring sides begin their own peace talks in Doha to end the decadeslong war in Afghanistan.
Earlier Saturday, nine people in eastern Afghanistan were killed by roadside bomb that struck a minivan full of civilians, an official said.
Ghazni province police spokesman Ahmad Khan Sirat said that a second roadside bomb killed two policemen, when it struck their vehicle as the police were responding to the first explosion.
Sirat added that the bombings had wounded several others, and that the attacks were under investigation.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks. The provincial police spokesman claimed the Taliban had placed the bomb.
NATO’s civilian representative in Afghanistan, Stefano Pontecorvo responded by saying, “the taking of young innocent lives is never acceptable.”
Information for this article was contributed by Tameem Akhgar of The Associated Press; by Mujib Mashal and Najim Rahim of The New York Times; and by Qiam Noori of The Tribune News Service.