35 Dead in Attack on Shiite Center in Kabul

KABUL (Conspiracy Talk News) – At least 35 people were killed and 56 injured on Thursday in an attack on a Shiite Muslim cultural center in the Afghan capital, Kabul, according to authorities.

Several suicide bombers exploded in front of the center” said Najib Danish, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. 

After explosives were detonated in the basement of the building, where dozens of people had gathered to commemorate the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979.

Witnesses said “at least one suicide bomber gained access to the event and was sitting among the attendees”, said Shiite leader Abdul Hussain Ramazandada. The man blew himself up when people ran away from other explosions.

The emergency room at the nearby “Istiqlal hospital was overwhelmed by the dead and wounded”, said the centre’s director, Mohammed Sabir. Reinforcements of doctors and nurses were requested to help, more than 50 doctors and nurses worked to save the wounded, most of whom suffered severe burns.

The cultural center, a two-story building located in the humble neighbourhood of Dasht-e-Barchi, mostly Shia, just west of the capital. It is a simple structure surrounded by adobe houses where some of the poorest of Kabul live.

In an interview with Conspiracy Talk News (CTN NEWS) a senior member of the Shiite clerical council Mohammad Asif Mesbah said the attack could be because the center also houses the Afghan Voice news agency, which has a marked pro-Iranian tendency. Its owner, Sayed Eissa Hussaini Mazari, is a staunch supporter of Iran, and news coverage of Iran, a Shiite-majority country, predominates in the agency’s coverage.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack at first, although in recent months the branch in Afghanistan of the Islamic State group has claimed several attacks against Shiites in Kabul. 

The group issued a warning this year after an attack on the Iraqi embassy in Kabul, promising to persecute Afghan Shiites. Since then, the militia has claimed at least two attacks on Shiite mosques in Kabul and one in the western city of Herat, in which dozens of people have been killed.

In a telephone interview with CTN NEWS, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid denied that the insurgent group was implicated in Thursday’s attack on the cultural center.

The Afghan branch of the Islamic State group, made up of Sunni extremists, sees Shiites as apostates. The branch of the IS group in Afghanistan Uzbek militants from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, who separated from the Taliban, and disillusioned insurgents who have abandoned the largest and most established Taliban force.

With the increase in attacks against Shiites in Kabul, fear has grown among the residents of the area. Most schools have additional armed guards. Even so, Ramazandada said “that security in the cultural center was scarce”.

The president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, described the attack as a “crime against humanity”.

“The terrorists have killed our people. The terrorists have attacked our mosques, our sacred places, and now our cultural center, “he said in a statement issued by the presidential palace, in which he claimed that these attacks are attacks against Islam and” all human values. “

On the other hand, six pastoral children died in the northern province of Balkh when a roadside bomb exploded, according to the local governor.

The children were between 8 and 10 years old, said the governor of Dawlat Abad district, Mohammad Karim.

No one claimed the attack, although Karim blamed the Taliban, noting that the insurgents had placed the mine to attack Afghan officials and security forces.

Afghanistan has the highest mine casualty figure in the world. 

It is believed that 140 people die or are injured each month by mines and other bombs placed on the roads of the country.

“Three police officers were killed and another was wounded overnight in a Taliban attack on a police post in the central province of Ghazni”, said Mohammad Zaman, provincial police chief.

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