Nearly 60 civilians, most of them Shiites, were killed and nearly 120 others were injured Sunday in Kabul in a suicide bombing by Islamic State (IS) militants that targeted an ID and voter registration center. lists in the run-up to the parliamentary elections, reaffirming the worst fears of a wave of violence aimed at preventing participation in the process, which is scheduled to take place in October.
The bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a crowd of XNUMX, waiting for him to cast his ballot. Since then, the death toll has not stopped rising.
At night, 57 people were killed and 119 wounded, the vast majority members of the Khazar Shiite minority, which is often targeted by Sunni extremists in the Islamic State, according to the health ministry.
Among the dead were at least 21 women and five children, said a spokesman for the Ministry of Health, while 47 women and sixteen children were among the injured.
"We now know that the government is incapable of protecting us," said one man, Akbar, after the tragedy, before swearing at President Ashraf Ghani and shutting down private Tolo News. "Death to the government, death to the Taliban," the crowd shouted, pointing to documents and photographs drenched in blood.
The Taliban immediately said they had "nothing to do" with Sunday's attack, indicating indirectly but clearly that the responsibility lay with the ISIS, which later claimed responsibility for the attack through its propaganda agency, the News Agency. Amak.
The US government has condemned the "bestiality" of the attack on citizens who wanted to exercise their "fundamental democratic rights", with US Secretary of State John Sullivan denouncing this "foolish" move and reiterating Toronto's commitment from Toronto. to "destroy" the IK.
The bomber struck shortly after noon in a predominantly Shi'ite western district of Kabul.
It was the first attack in Kabul against any of the polling stations in the run-up to the October 20th parliamentary elections since registration began on April 14th. These elections will be the first since 2010 and the vote, the first since the 2014 presidential election, will precede that of 2019.
Two other voter registration centers in the province came under attack last week. On Friday, a rocket hit one in Badghis (north), killing one of the guards and injuring another, according to a provincial official who blamed the Taliban. On Tuesday, three election officials and two police officers were abducted in Gore County before being released 48 hours later following protests by protesters. And there, officials blamed the Taliban.
Violence and attacks are the main obstacles to the smooth running of the elections, admits the election commission, which has set up voter registration centers in schools and mosques, always guarded by police officers who check citizens at entrances.
Many Afghans say they would like to punish members of parliament (249 in total) who they consider empty or corrupt and remain in office even though their term formally expired four years ago. But they fear that the vote will be for nothing, that fraud will prevail and that violence will escalate. In the face of widespread public outcry, President Ghani on Thursday ordered governors of the 34 provinces to speed up the registration process, public officials to register with family members, and mullahs to raise awareness.
The latest attack - claimed by the Islamic State - in the Afghan capital took place on the first day of the Persian New Year, March 21, with more than thirty dead and 70 wounded.