Gunmen raid Sikh temple in central Kabul
IS attack leaves 25 dead, eight injured
KABUL: Gunmen and suicide bombers raided a Sikh religious complex in the Afghan capital of Kabul yesterday, killing 25 people before security forces killed all of the attackers, the government said.
The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement. Sikhs have been the target of attack by Islamist militants before in South Asia. Their community in Afghanistan numbers fewer than 300 families.
Several hours after the early morning attack was launched, Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said an operation by the security forces was over and all of the attackers had been killed. He did not say how many.
The ministry said 25 people who had been in the religious compound had been killed, eight wounded and 80 rescued.
Narender Singh Khalsa, a member of parliament who represents the tiny Sikh community, said he had heard reports that up to 200 people had been trapped in the temple during the attack.
“Three suicide bombers entered a dharamsala,” he said, referring to a sanctuary area in a temple compound. “The gunmen started their attack at a time when the dharamsala was full of worshippers.”
Outside, families gathered and women cried as they waited to find out the fate of their relatives.
In the late 1980s, there were about 500,000 Sikhs scattered across Afghanistan, many from families that had been there for generations, but most fled after years of civil war and the rise of the Taliban.
A Taliban spokesman, in a message on Twitter, denied responsibility for the attack.
Human rights activists and countries including the United States, India and Pakistan condemned the attack.
“We are shocked and disheartened ... the authorities have a responsibility to protect minorities and their places of worship in Afghanistan,” Amnesty International South Asia said on Twitter.
In 2018, a suicide bombing targeting the Sikh community and claimed by Islamic State killed more than a dozen people in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad.
The United States last month struck a deal with the Taliban on the withdrawal of US-led international troops but the agreement does not include Islamic State militants.
The attack comes a day after the United States said it would cut aid to the government by US$1 billion (about 32.8 billion baht) over frustrations that the country’s feuding political leaders could not reach agreement and form a team to negotiate with the Taliban.
The decision came after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Kabul in a bid to resolve a standoff between President Ashraf Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah, who also is proclaiming himself president following a contested election.