ISIS claims deadly blast at Afghan Shiite center
Hospital is overrun as 41 die, another 84 injured in attack
KABUL, Afghanistan — At least 41 people were killed and dozens more wounded Thursday in a bombing at a Shiite cultural center in Kabul that also houses a news agency, Afghan officials said. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack.
It was the latest in a series of mass-casualty attacks against Shiite targets by the militant group’s Afghan affiliate. The U.N. mission in Afghanistan has documented more than a dozen attacks since January 2016, with hundreds of Shiites dead or wounded. One of the deadliest was in October, when suicide bombers killed at least 57 worshippers in a Shiite mosque in Kabul, the capital, and injured dozens more.
“I have little doubt that this attack deliberately targeted civilians,” said Toby Lanzer, acting head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan. “Today in Kabul we have witnessed another truly despicable crime in a year already marked by unspeakable atrocities.”
In the assault Thursday, one suicide bomber entered the Tebyan cultural center during a group discussion for the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and detonated his explosive vest, said Sadiq Muradi, Kabul’s deputy police chief. Two improvised explosive devices placed nearby went off shortly after that, officials said.
Many had severe burns
Wahidullah Majrooh, a spokesman for the Afghan Health Ministry, said at least 41 people were killed and 84 wounded in the attack. Workers at the Istiqlal hospital appeared overwhelmed by the number of victims, some of them lying in the corridors. Many were being treated for severe burns. Family members arrived to claim the bodies of loved ones.
The Shiite cultural center attacked Thursday is believed to have leanings toward Iran; pictures of the country’s supreme leader often are on display at its gatherings.
The cultural center’s website and Facebook page showed it hosting discussions and gatherings on religious and political issues, many of them critical of the West’s approach to the Middle East. At a recent event, members stomped on Israeli flags and burned pictures of President Donald Trump.
In a statement Thursday, the White House pledged to work with the government to bring the attackers to justice, saying “the enemies of Afghanistan will not succeed in their attempts to destroy the country and divide the Afghan people.”
As Afghan and U.S. officials were busy trying to tackle the affiliate in its stronghold in the east, urban attacks claimed by the group started increasing, particularly in Kabul.
The city has long dealt with attacks from the Haqqani network, a brutal arm of the Taliban, but officials have struggled to gain a clear picture of the Islamic State’s urban cell — such as whether suicide bombers can be traced to Nangarhar, or whether there are overlaps between the networks that facilitate such attacks for the Islamic State and the Haqqanis.
‘Leaders are veterans’
Borhan Osman, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group who has closely studied militant groups in Afghanistan, said the Islamic State had claimed seven suicide bombings in Kabul since October, more than the Taliban.
“As far as I see, the leaders are veterans — they were with the Haqqani network, the Taliban, or al-Qaida, and defected to Islamic State in Khorasan, bringing their expertise and network,” Osman said. “But most of those blowing themselves up are the young Salafis who are indoctrinated into jihadism and find in Islamic State a cool political ideology seeking to dominate the world.”