Extremists bomb march in capital, killing at least 80
KABUL — At least 80 people were killed and another 231 wounded in the Afghan capital on Saturday, when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-packed clothing among a large crowd of demonstrators, officials and witnesses said.
In a statement issued by its news agency, Aamaq, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack on a protest march by Afghanistan’s ethnic Hazaras. The marchers were demanding that a major electric power line be routed through their impoverished home province. Most Hazaras are Shiite Muslims, while most Afghans are Sunni.
The attack was one of the deadliest in Afghanistan since the Taliban launched a violent insurgency in 2001.
If the Islamic State claim is correct, the bombing would mark the first time the group has launched an attack in the capital of Kabul. The militant group has been building a presence along Afghanistan’s eastern border with Pakistan, mostly in Nangarhar province, for the past year.
President Ashraf Ghani said that Sunday would be a national day of mourning.
Waheed Majroeh, the head of international relations for the Ministry of Public Health, said the death toll could rise “as the condition of many of the injured is very serious.”
Footage on Afghan television and photographs posted on social media showed a scene of horror and carnage, with numerous bodies and body parts spread across Kabul’s Demazang Square.
Road blocks that had been set up overnight to prevent the marchers accessing the center of the city or the presidential palace hampered efforts to transfer some of the wounded to hospital, witnesses said.
The government had received intelligence that an attack on the march could take place, and had warned the organizers, a spokesman for Ghani told the Associated Press.
“We had intelligence over recent days and it was shared with the demonstration organizers, we shared our concerns because we knew that terrorists wanted to bring sectarianism to our community,” spokesman Haroon Chakhansuri said.
Two suicide bombers had attempted to target the demonstrators, who were gathering in Demazang Square as their fourhour protest march wound down, Chakhansuri said. One of the suicide bombers was shot by the police.