The suicide bombing of a suicide bomber of the Islamic State jihadist group against a wedding Saturday in Kabul has left 80 dead, according to a new report announced Wednesday by the Afghan Ministry of the Interior.
The most deadly attack since January 2018
"The death toll is now 80," spokesman Nasrat Rahimi told AFP. "Seriously injured people taken to hospital have lost their lives." This is the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since that claimed by the Taliban in January 2018, when a car bomb killed 103 people. An initial assessment of authorities Sunday morning had reported at least 63 dead and more than 180 injured.
The attack was claimed by the Afghan branch of ISIS, which said it targeted "a large group of apostates". The IS, made up of radical Sunni Islamists, has repeatedly targeted the Shia community of Afghanistan, whose families were married. The powerful explosion took a large part of the roof of the huge wedding hall where several hundred guests were gathered.
Hope for an agreement with the United States
The attack came as the Afghan population, exasperated by indiscriminate violence, hopes for an agreement between the United States and the Taliban that would pave the way for peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the insurgents. Such an agreement should provide for a more or less complete US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, with a timetable to the key. This is the main demand of the Taliban, who would in return commit that the territories they control can no longer be used by "terrorist" organizations.
A cease-fire between insurgents and Americans, or at least a "reduction of violence", should also be included in the text, which would be historic, 18 years after the invasion of Afghanistan by the United States to drive the Taliban out of power in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.