Suicide bombers stormed a Shiite cultural centre and news agency in the Afghan capital on Thursday, killing more than 40 people and injuring scores, many of them students attending a conference. Islamic State said in an online statement that it was responsible for the attack, the latest in a series the movement has claimed on Shiite targets in Kabul.
Waheed Majrooh, a spokesman for the ministry of public health, said 41 people, including four women and two children, had been killed and 84 wounded, most suffering from burns. The attack occurred during a morning panel discussion on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Sunni-majority Afghanistan at the Tabian Social and Cultural Centre, witnesses said.
Deputy Health Minister Feda Mohammad Paikan said 35 bodies had been brought into the nearby Istiqlal hospital. Television pictures showed many of the injured suffered serious burns. Meanwhile, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid issued a statement on Twitter denying involvement in the attack, which was condemned by both the Kabul government and Afghanistan’s international partners including NATO and the United Nations.
“I have little doubt that this attack deliberately targeted civilians,” said Toby Lanzer, acting head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. Today in Kabul we have witnessed another truly despicable crime in a year already marked by unspeakable atrocities.”
Over the past two years, Islamic State in Khorasan, as the local group is known, has claimed a growing number of attacks on Shi‘ite targets in Afghanistan, where sectarian attacks were previously rare.
The movement, which first appeared in eastern Afghanistan in 2015, has extended its reach steadily, although many security officials question its ability to conduct complex attacks and believe it has help from criminals or other militant groups.
Prior to Thursday’s attack, there had been at least 12 attacks on Shi‘ite targets since the start of 2016, in which almost 700 people were killed or wounded, according to United Nations figures. Before that, there had only been one major attack, in 2011.
