Islamic State claims responsibility for suicide blast in Afghanistan which killed 33, injured more than 100

Jalalabad: A suicide bomb blast in Afghanistan’s eastern city of Jalalabad killed 33 people and injured more than 100 outside a bank where government workers collect salaries, the city’s police chief said on Saturday.

Police were investigating whether there was a second explosion after people rushed to the scene to help, the police chief, Fazel Ahmad Sherzad, told a news conference.

“It was a suicide attack,” Sherzad said, adding that police had yet to determine if the attacker had worn the explosives or had placed them in a car. “It is early to say what kind of suicide bomber.”

Afghanistan’s president Ashraf Ghani said that the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed at least 33 people.

Officials say the attack in Jalalabad on Saturday also wounded 105 people.

Speaking in Faizabad, President Ashraf Ghani said: “In the horrific incident in Nangarhar (province), who took responsibility? The Taliban didn’t claim responsibility. Daesh claimed responsibility for it.”

Daesh is an Arabic acronym for the Islamic extremist group.

“It was an evil act. We strongly condemn it,” the Islamist militants’ spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told Reuters.

Brutal images of the injured and the dead at the scene have been circulating online.

#Jalalabad residence are waiting to donate blood for the victims of suicide attack, which left 22 killed,50 injured. pic.twitter.com/QsJxMdY4rZ

— Pajhwok Afghan News (@pajhwok) April 18, 2015

Ghani reached out to the victims and tweeted:

Moments a go Pres. Ghani arrived in #Badakhshan , he condemns this cowardly and heinous terrorist attack on civilians in #Jalalabad.

— Ashraf Ghani (@ashrafghani) April 18, 2015

Let me 1st send my sincere prayers to the soul of our gallant/martyred soldiers & seek patience frm Allah(swt) 4 their families. #Badakhshan

— Ashraf Ghani (@ashrafghani) April 18, 2015

Long live Afghanistan.

— Ashraf Ghani (@ashrafghani) April 18, 2015

For the first time since the hardline Islamist Taliban movement was ousted from power in 2001, Afghan forces are fighting with little support from Nato troops.

Nato, which at its peak had 130,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, has only a few thousand left, involved mainly in training and special operations.

Police said a third blast that shook Jalalabad was a controlled detonation after experts discovered another bomb close to the scene of the first explosion.

Reuters