KABUL: A suicide bomber blew himself up in a banqueting hall where religious scholars had gathered in the Afghan capital Kabul on Tuesday, killing more than 50 people, three government officials said. Najib Danish, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said more than 80 other people had been injured. “A suicide bomber detonated his explosives inside a wedding hall where Islamic religious scholars had gathered to commemorate the anniversary of the Prophet Mohammad’s birth,” Danish said. The attacker entered a banquet room in the Uranus wedding hall, a massive complex housing several large banqueting halls near Kabul airport, and detonated his explosives.
“Hundreds of Islamic scholars and their followers had gathered to recite verses from the Holy Quran to observe the Eid Milad-un-Nabi festival at the private banquet hall,” said Basir Mujahid, a spokesman for Kabul police.
Officials at Kabul’s Emergency Hospital said 30 ambulances had rushed to the blast site and over 40 people were critically wounded.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the blast.
It follows a wave of bloody violence across the war-torn country in recent weeks that has killed hundreds of people as militants step up assaults amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts to end the 17-year conflict.
A photo posted on WhatsApp purportedly of the function room showed blood splattered bodies, some with the clothes partially ripped off by the force of the blast, overturned chairs and broken glass strewn over the floor.
“The suicide bomber detonated himself inside the hall during a ceremony involving religious scholars,” Kabul police spokesman Basir Mujahid said.
Italian NGO Emergency said on Twitter a dozen wounded had been taken to its trauma facility in Kabul, all of them “seriously wounded”.
A manager of Uranus Wedding Palace, which also hosts political and religious functions, said the suicide bomber blew himself up in the middle of the gathering of around 1,000 people. It was the bloodiest assault in the Afghan capital since a twin bomb attack on a wrestling club in September that killed at least 26 people and one of the deadliest in the country this year. A suicide attack on Afghans protesting the appointment of a local police chief in the eastern province of Nangarhar in September killed at least 68 people and wounded another 165. No group claimed the explosion. — Reuters/AFP
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