Khalili
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
March 6, 2020
ISLAMABAD – Officials in Afghanistan say at least 27 people were killed and 55 injured Friday when gunmen opened fire on a gathering in Kabul, with high-profile opposition politicians in attendance.
Witnesses said the shooting started when a former vice president, Karim Khalili, was delivering his speech to a ceremony in the Afghan capital, organized to commemorate the death of a prominent minority Shi’ite Hazara politician.
The event was being shown live by Afghan television stations and Khalili could be seen running for cover along with others when the gunfire erupted from a nearby under-construction building.
Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said Afghan security forces later engaged three assailants and killed them in the ensuing hours-long clash to end the siege.
There were no claims of responsibility, and the Taliban insurgency swiftly denied its involvement in the attack.
The Islamic State terror group’s regional affiliate, known as Khorasan Province or ISKP, has claimed responsibility for previous attacks on Shi’ite gatherings and worship places in Afghanistan.
Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah and former president Hamid Karzai were also among guest speakers at Friday’s gathering. Both of them escaped unharmed.
However, a former provincial governor was said to one among those wounded.
President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack as a “crime against humanity”, saying the violence was directed at Afghan national unity.
Last year’s commemoration of Abdul Ali Mazari’s death anniversary, which is mostly attended by Shi’ite Afghans, had also come under attack. About a dozen people were killed and many more were injured. That attack was claimed by Islamic State.
The ethnic Hazara leader was assassinated in 1995 after being taken hostage by militants when Afghanistan was in the grip of a deadly civil war.
Friday’s violence comes nearly a week after the United States and the Taliban sealed a landmark peace agreement in Qatar to try to bring an end to the Afghan war, now in its 19th year.
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