Two were killed and 18 wounded at the event, according to Afghan officials, the first big attack on the capital since a troop withdrawal agreement was signed last week in Doha between the United States and the Afghan Taliban.<\/p>\n
The Taliban said in a statement they were not involved in the attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe attack started with a boom, apparently a rocket landed in the area, Abdullah and some other politicians […] escaped the attack unhurt,\u201d Abdullah’s spokesman, Fraidoon Kwazoon, who was also present, told Reuters by telephone.<\/p>\n
The gathering marked the anniversary of the death of Abdul Ali Mazari, an ethnic Hazara leader who was killed in 1995 after being taken prisoner by the Taliban.<\/p>\n
Abdullah, runner-up in the last three Afghan presidential elections, each of which he disputed, has served as chief executive of a coalition government since 2014 and is also a former foreign minister.<\/p>\n
Broadcaster Tolo News showed live footage of people running for cover as gunfire was heard.<\/p>\n
President Ashraf Ghani tweeted that the attack was \u201ca crime against humanity and against the national unity of Afghanistan\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added he had telephoned Abdullah, his longtime political rival. Abdullah is contesting an Electoral Commission announcement last month that declared Ghani the winner of September’s presidential election.<\/p>\n
Several people were killed in a similar attack on the same commemoration last year. The militant Islamic State group claimed responsibility for that attack.<\/p>\n
Hazaras are mostly Shia Muslims. Minority Shias have been repeatedly attacked by militant groups in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
The US has been trying to spearhead efforts towards a lasting peace arrangement. Violence decreased during a seven-day hold-down agreement with the Taliban leading up to last Saturday’s deal, though the Taliban has since resumed attacks on Afghan forces.<\/p>\n
A senior Western security official said all checkpoints in Kabul were on high alert.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s too early to say but for now we are intensifying security,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two were killed and 18 wounded at the event, according to Afghan officials, the first big attack on the capital since a troop withdrawal agreement was signed last week in Doha between the United States and the Afghan Taliban. The Taliban said in a statement they were not involved in the attack. \u201cThe attack started […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2297,2299],"tags":[2409,2407,2546],"class_list":["post-13650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-world","tag-afghanistan","tag-kabul","tag-shia-muslims"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13652,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13650\/revisions\/13652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}