“We were planning to sleep when we heard the sound of a loud explosion,” a witness who lives near the venue and did not want to be identified told CNN.
“When I came outside, I saw smoke coming out of the hall. I saw dead bodies and wounded people, who were being taken to hospitals by policemen and Kabul ambulances. We are too in shock, too upset by the incident.”
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack. It said a Pakistani fighter detonated an explosive vest amid a large gathering of Shia Muslims, reported the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors terrorist group activities.
The terror group also said a car bombing followed the initial attack, added SITE.
Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack and said that despite the Taliban’s denials of responsibility, it still shared some of the blame because it “provides a platform for terrorists.”
“My top priority for now is to reach out to the families of victims of this barbaric attack,” Ghani said on Twitter.
He added that in response to the attack, he had “called an extraordinary security meeting to review and prevent such security lapses.”
The venue is in western Kabul, an area home to many of Afghanistan’s Shiite Hazara minority. It is also near the Darul Aman palace, where President Ashraf Ghani is expected to celebrate Afghan Independence Day on Monday.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the number of fatalities in the blast at a wedding ceremony in Kabul.
CNN’s Mitchell McCluskey in Atlanta and Sheena McKenzie in London contributed to this report
Source : Nbcnewyork