Dozens of students dead as suicide bomber targets Kabul classroom

Students and relatives described pulling bloodied victims from the rubble of a classroom that had been crowded with teenagers preparing to go to university.

Salaam Times and AFP

2018-08-15

A typical classroom at the Mawoud education centre in Kabul is shown in an undated photo. A suicide bomber who was targeting 9th- to 12th-graders killed at least 48 Afghans, mostly students, at the school August 15. [Twitter/Hushdar Media]

KABUL -- Dozens of Afghans, many believed to be students, were killed when a suicide blast ripped through a school in a Shia area of Kabul Wednesday (August 15), officials said.

Around a dozen ambulances rushed to the Mawoud education centre in the western part of the city, where students and relatives described pulling bloodied victims from the rubble of a classroom that had been crowded with teenagers preparing to go to university.

"At around 4 pm this afternoon, a suicide attacker who had strapped explosives to his body detonated himself inside the Mawoud education centre," police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai said.

"In the explosion 37 people were killed, more than 40 injured," he said, adding that the "absolute majority" of them had been students.

Workers clean up the devastated classroom at the Mawoud education centre in Kabul August 15, after a suicide bomber targeting 9th- to 12th-graders killed at least 48 Afghans. [Twitter/Hushdar Media]

He warned the toll could rise. Other officials have put it at as high as 48 people killed, with scores more injured.

It was not clear how many students were at the centre at the time.

One witness, a student named Ali Ahmad, said as many as 100 students might have been inside when the bomber struck, but officials have not yet confirmed the figure.

Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, which President Ashraf Ghani swiftly confirmed in a statement.

Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid denied his group's involvement on Twitter.

Civilian casualties on the rise

Militant attacks and suicide bombs were the leading causes of civilian deaths in the first half of 2018, a recent United Nations report showed.

The "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) has carried out multiple attacks in Jalalabad and in the capital in recent months, targeting everything from government ministries to a midwife training centre.

The group has increasingly targeted the Shia minority in gruesome sectarian attacks at the sect's mosques and gatherings.

Earlier this month, ISIS claimed responsibility for twin blasts at a mosque in Gardez that killed at least 35 Afghans.

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2 Comment

هانیه | 2018-08-17

Following the imposing of U.S. sanctions against Iran and the fall of the Rial value against the Afghan currency, a wave of returns to Afghanistan [by Afghan compatriots] began. Over a short period of time 500,000 individuals returned to the country, each of whom with a special skill and every one of them returned to Afghanistan from Iran with hopes, dreams, aspirations and, of course, disappointments. This could mean the beginning of reconstruction and the end of migration. However, Iran first prevented Afghans from leaving that country. Then, it implemented the old conspiracy, that is the instigation of war and insecurity to spread despair and disappointment through supporting and empowering the Taliban and ISIS, who carried out many attacks on our cities. Their objective was for the immigrants, most of whom were from Shiite areas, to be disappointed and miserable and could not return home with pride. They wanted Iran to once again recruit and oppress them by abusing the situation in which Shiites live. They wanted to avoid the collapse of the Iranian currency [Rials] through keeping immigrants in, and to prevent disappearance of jobs related to immigrants and immigration through managing [their affairs] and smuggling, so that those who had migrated change their mind and return. The night following the attack on Ghazni, Iranian [state-run] news agency broadcasted a news story claiming that [Iran] had sent a freed prisoner back to the country. "Through a successful operation

u | 2018-08-16

The Muslim-Brotherhood related Jehadi parties, Taliban, ISIS all of them are legs of the same donkey, but the question is that, who has given strength to these legs? This is a question that only Americans, Pakistanis, Iranians and Russians know how to answer it. It is misfortune of the innocent Afghans of this land who die everyday, and the number of orphans and widows in the country increases from day to day.