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Islamic State Claims Kabul Shi'ite Attack


Men carry the coffin of a relative who died in a suicide bombing targeting a training class in a private building in the Shi'ite neighborhood of Dasht-i Barcha, in western Kabul, on August 16.
Men carry the coffin of a relative who died in a suicide bombing targeting a training class in a private building in the Shi'ite neighborhood of Dasht-i Barcha, in western Kabul, on August 16.

The Islamic State (IS) extremist group has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in a Shi'ite area of Kabul on August 15.

Earlier on August 16, Afghan authorities revised the death toll from the attack to 34 killed from their earlier reports of 48 dead.

Health Ministry spokesman Wahid Majroh said that 56 people were wounded in the bombing in the neighborhood of Dasht-e Barchi when the bomber walked into a building where high-school graduates were preparing for university entrance exams and blew himself up.

Authorities a day earlier had said 67 people were wounded.

Most of the victims were young men and women studying together at a private education center in the western Kabul neighborhood.

Fifteen of the victims' bodies were taken to an ethnic Hazara community compound in Kabul where a mass funeral service was being held on August 16.

Other victims were being taken to their villages near Kabul to be buried there.

IS extremists have carried out similar attacks in the past, hitting Shi'ite mosques, schools, and cultural centers.

Jawad Ghawari, a member of the city's Shi'ite clerical council, said there were at least 13 attacks on the Shi'ite community in the past two years in Kabul alone.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, dpa, RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan
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