ISIS claims bombings in Kabul, 80 killed

Twin explosions tore through a demonstration by members of Afghanistan’s mainly Shia Hazara minority in Kabul on Saturday, killing at least 80 people and wounding more than 230 in a suicide attack claimed by Islamic State.

Graphic television footage from the site of the attack showed many dead bodies lying on the bloodied road, close to where thousands of Hazara had been demonstrating over the route of a planned multimillion dollar power line.

“Two fighters from Islamic State detonated explosive belts at a gathering of Shias in the city of Kabul in Afghanistan,” said a brief statement on the group’s Amaq news agency.

If confirmed as the work of Islamic State, the attack would represent a major escalation for the group which has hitherto been largely confined to the eastern province of Nangarhar.

The explicit reference to the Hazara’s Shia religious affiliation also represents a menacing departure for Afghanistan, where the bloody sectarian rivalry between Sunni and Shi’ites typical of Iraq has been relatively rare, despite decades of war.

The Persian-speaking Hazara, estimated to make up about nine per cent of the population, are Afghanistan’s third-largest minority but they have long suffered discrimination and thousands were killed during the period of Taliban rule.

“We were holding a peaceful demonstration when I heard a bang and then everyone was escaping and yelling,” said Sabira Jan, a protestor who witnessed the attack and saw bloodied bodies strewn across the ground. “There was no one to help.”

The interior ministry said, “Based on initial information, the attack was carried out by three suicide bombers... The third attacker was gunned down by security forces.”

The wounded overwhelmed city hospitals, officials said, with reports emerging of blood shortages and urgent appeals for donors circulating on social media.

The Taliban, who are in the middle of their annual summer offensive, denied any involvement in the attack and said in a statement posted on its website that the attack was “a plot to ignite civil war”. The Taliban are more powerful in Afghanistan than their fierce enemy, the ISIS.

The attack succeeded despite tight security which saw much of the city centre sealed off with stacks of shipping containers and other obstacles and helicopters patrolling overhead.

President Ashraf Ghani declared a national day of mourning and vowed revenge, while the top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Tadamichi Yamamoto, condemned the attack as a war crime. The United States offered any assistance needed to investigate the attack.

Saturday’s demonstrators had been demanding that a 500 kV transmission line from Turkmenistan to Kabul be rerouted through two provinces with large Hazara populations, saying they feared being shut out of the project.

The transmission line, intended to provide secure electricity to 10 provinces, is part of the so-called TUTAP project backed by the Asia Development Bank, linking energy-rich states of Central Asia with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The government said the project guaranteed ample power to the provinces, Bamyan and Wardak, which lie west of Kabul, and that altering the planned route would delay it by years and cost millions of dollars. But the resentment felt by many Hazaras runs deeper than simple questions of energy supply.

In November, thousands of Hazara marched through Kabul to protest at government inaction after seven members of their community were beheaded by Islamist militants and several protestors briefly tried to force their way into the presidential palace.