KABUL,
Afghanistan — At least 41 people were killed and dozens more wounded on
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 United Nations 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 worshipers 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, the acting head of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan. “Today in
Kabul we have witnessed another truly despicable crime in a year already marked
by unspeakable atrocities.”
In the
assault on Thursday, one suicide bomber entered the Tebyan cultural center
during a group discussion for the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan, and then 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.
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 on Thursday is believed to have leanings toward
Iran; pictures of the country’s supreme leader are often 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 Trump.
Reza
Khalili, a reporter for the Afghan Voice Agency, a news organization run by the
center, said that the facility was a three-story building, with the news agency
on the top floor, and the cultural center and a gathering hall in the basement.
“A
suicide attacker entered the hall in the basement, where 150 to 200 people were
gathered, and he blew himself up,” Mr. Khalili said. “Most of those killed were
participants of the program.”
Hamid
Paiman Azimi, 28, another reporter at the agency, was in the agency’s
third-floor offices when the suicide blast went off.
“Those
who were in the first and second floors all were killed or wounded, no one
remained,” said Mr. Azimi, whose father was killed in the mosque attack in
October. “I did not see much blood, all the victims were burned by the fire
caused by the explosion.”
A local
extremist group claiming allegiance to the Islamic State emerged in 2014 in the
eastern province of Nangarhar, and spread quickly to at least nine districts
there. Sustained operations by American and Afghan security forces reduced its
presence last year to three districts; efforts since then to eradicate the
insurgents have stalled, although United States military officials said they
had “removed from the battlefield” at least 1,600 of the group’s fighters since
March. The top American commander has likened the problem to a balloon — when the group
is squeezed in one district, it emerges in another.
As
Afghan and American 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.
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. And yet
with the focus of military operations in Nangarhar, which largely relies on
airstrikes, there is little understanding of the cell that carries out such
urban attacks.
“As far
as I see, the leaders are veterans — they were with the Haqqani Network, the
Taliban, or Al Qaeda, and defected to Islamic State in Khorasan, bringing their
expertise and network,” Mr. 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.”
Also
complicating the war in Afghanistan are broader tensions in the Middle East,
with fears that Afghanistan could turn into the next proxy battleground between
Saudi Arabia, which is predominately Sunni, and Iran, which sees itself as the
defender of Shiites around the world. Afghans are already drawn into that rivalry in other
battlefields: The Iranian government has openly sent thousands of Afghan
Shiites to Syria to fight on behalf of the government of President Bashar
al-Assad, while Afghan and Western officials believe Afghans are also fighting
on behalf of Saudi allies in places like Yemen.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com
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