Daesh claims Kabul suicide blast that kills 41

KABUL— A Daesh suicide bomber struck a Shiite cultural centre in Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 41 people and underscoring the extremist group’s growing reach in Afghanistan even as its self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria has been dismantled.

The attack may have targeted the pro-Iran Afghan Voice news agency housed in the two-storey building.

The Sunni extremists of Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, view Shiite Muslims as apostates and have repeatedly attacked Afghanistan’s Shiite minority and targets linked to neighbouring Iran.

The attack wounded more than 80 people, many of whom suffered severe burns.

Local Shiite leader Abdul Hussain Ramazandada said the bomber slipped into an academic seminar at the centre and blew himself up amid the participants. More bombs went off just outside the centre as people fled. The Daesh-linked Aamaq news agency said four bombs were used in the assault, one strapped to the suicide attacker.

It said the centre was funded by Iran and used to propagate Shiite beliefs.

Ali Reza Ahmadi, a journalist with Afghan Voice, said he leaped from the window of his second-floor office after the first bomb went off and saw flames pouring from the basement.

“I jumped from the roof toward the basement, yelling at people to get water to put out the fire,” he said.

By late afternoon, Health Ministry spokesperson Wahid Mujro said 41 people were dead and 84 others wounded.