Kabul was plunged into mourning on July 24 after its deadliest attack
for 15 years killed 80 people and left hundreds maimed, reigniting
concern that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) was seeking
to expand its foothold in Afghanistan.
Tempers were frayed a day
after the twin bombings that tore through crowds of Shiite Hazara
protesters, as many anxiously searched hospitals and morgues, looking
among the mutilated bodies for missing relatives.
The attack in the majority Sunni
country highlighted the risk of sectarian disharmony in a nation that
has largely avoided the bloody strife between Sunnis and Shiites that
plagues much of the Muslim world.
“I promise you that I will
avenge the blood of our loved ones on the perpetrators of this crime,
wherever they are,” President Ashraf Ghani was quoted as saying by AFP,
declaring July 24 a national day of mourning.
The bombings
occurred as thousands of Hazara protesters had gathered to demand that a
multi-million-dollar power line pass through their electricity-starved
province of Bamiyan, one of the most deprived areas of Afghanistan.
“Two
fighters from Islamic State [ISIL] detonated explosive belts at a
gathering of Shiites in the city of Kabul in Afghanistan,” said a brief
statement on the group’s Amaq news agency, according to Reuters.
If confirmed as the work of ISIL, the attack, among the most deadly since the U.S.-led campaign to oust the Taliban in 2001, would represent a major escalation for a group hitherto largely confined to the eastern province of Nangarhar.
The
site of the attack, which Ghani renamed as “Martyr’s Square,” remained
littered with scorched metal, charred flesh and personal items including
shoes, ID cards and protest banners with messages such as “Don’t
eliminate us.”
Many protesters defiantly camped there overnight,
holding candlelight vigils and reciting Koranic verses even though the
government announced a 10-day ban on public gatherings on security
grounds.
Dozens of graves were dug with shovels and excavators at
a nearby hilltop cemetery, where coffins were brought in, draped in
traditional burial shrouds.
Many who survived with grievous
wounds overwhelmed city hospitals, with reports of blood shortages and
urgent appeals for donors swirling on social media.
The Afghan government is currently in the middle of an operation backed by NATO airstrikes against IS in Nangarhar, after Ghani earlier this year claimed that the group had been defeated.
