Bloodiest attack in a year

DOZENS of young girls were buried yesterday on a desolate hilltop cemetery in Kabul, a day after a secondary school was targeted in the bloodiest attack in Afghanistan in over a year.

A series of blasts outside the school during a peak holiday shopping period claimed more than 50 people’s lives, mostly female pupils, and wounded more than 100 in Dasht-e-Barchi, a west Kabulsuburb populated mostly by Hazara Shiites.

The government blamed the Taliban for the carnage, but the insurgents denied responsibility and issued a statement saying the nation needed to “safeguard and look after educational centres and institutions”.

Saturday’s blasts came as the US military continues to pull out its last 2 500 troops from the violence-racked country despite faltering peace efforts between the Taliban and Kabul to end a decades-long war.

Interior Ministry spokesperson Tareq Arian said a car bomb detonated in front of the Sayed Al-Shuhada girls school on Saturday, and when the learners rushed out in panic, two more devices exploded.

Residents were shopping ahead of this week’s Eid al-Fitr holiday – which marks the end of the month of Ramadaan – when the blasts occurred.

Yesterday, families buried the dead at a hilltop site known as “Martyrs Cemetery”, where victims of attacks against the Hazara community are laid to rest.

Bodies in wooden coffins were lowered into graves one by one by mourners still in a state of shock and fear, an AFP photographer said.

“I rushed to the scene (after the blasts) and found myself in the middle of bodies, their hands and heads cut off and bones smashed,” said Mohammad Taqi, a resident of Dashte-Barchi, whose two daughters were at the school but had escaped the attack.

Last week, the school’s learners had protested about a lack of teachers and study materials, said Mirza Hussain, a university student from the area.

“But what they got (in return) was a massacre.”

Books and school bags belonging to the victims still lay scattered at the site.

Afghan officials including President Ashraf Ghani blamed the Taliban.

“This savage group does not have the power to confront security forces on the battlefield, and instead targets with brutality and barbarism public facilities and the girls’ school,” Ghani said in a statement.

The Taliban denied involvement, and insisted they have not carried out attacks in Kabul since February last year, when they signed a deal with Washington that paved the way for peace talks and withdrawal of the remaining US troops.

But the group has clashed daily with Afghan forces in the rugged countryside even as the US military reduces its presence.

The US was supposed to have pulled all forces out by May 1 as agreed with the Taliban last year, but Washington pushed back the date to September 11, a move that angered the insurgents.

The leader of the Taliban, Hibatullah Akhundzada, reiterated in a message released ahead of Eid that any delay in withdrawing the troops was a “violation” of that deal. “If America again fails to live up to its commitments then the world must bear witness and hold America accountable for all the consequences,” Akhundzada warned in yesterday’s message.

He also said that the country should “safeguard and look after educational centres and institutions”.

UN agency Unicef condemned the attack on the school.

“Violence in and around schools is never acceptable … Children must never be the target of violence,” it said, urging the country’s warring sides to protect human rights.

The Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood has been a regular target of attacks from Sunni Islamist militants. In May last year, gunmen launched a daylight raid on a hospital which left 25 people dead, including 16 mothers of newborns. On October 24, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a tuition centre, killing 18 people in an attack claimed by the Islamic State.