Islamic State Claims Responsibility For Suicide Attack In Kabul That Killed 57 People

On April 22^nd in Afghanistan’s capitol city Kabul 57 people were killed and another 119 were injured after a suicide bomber blew himself up outside of a voter registration center. The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack through their Aamaq news agency saying they were targeting Shiite “apostates.”

Most of the people killed were waiting in line to receive voter identification cards. In October of this year Afghanistan plans to hold parliamentary elections and many Afghani residents do not own ID cards which they need in order to register to vote. Voter registration began this month and Afghanistan has already seen a number of attacks aimed at disrupting these preparations.

For example, according to authorities, 3 police officers were killed last week by IS members in two separate provinces. The officers were in charge of protecting voter registration centers. The Afghan security forces have had a difficult time stopping terror attacks since the U.S. and NATO drew down forces in 2014.

Not only is the IS within Afghanistan but the more established Taliban are primarily based out of Afghanistan as well and control 37 provinces within the country.

Both the Taliban and IS want to establish Islamic law in Afghanistan under their rule. While the Taliban tends to primarily target security forces and government officials, IS regularly targets the Shiite minority.

This is not the only country where the IS has disrupted democratic elections. The same has been seen in Egypt during their 2018 presidential elections which were held back in March. IS has also threatened Iraq’s parliamentary election which is scheduled to be held next month. IS stated that anyone who participates in the election will be considered an infidel and will be targeted. But Iraqi officials have said that voting centers will be well protected. Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajer who is the official spokesperson for IS said “Polling stations are a target for us, so stay away from them.”

With over 7,000 voter registration centers in Afghanistan protecting all of them from IS will be a very difficult task. Afghanistan’s president Ashraf Ghani has pushed on with the elections since he is under pressure from international partners to ensure that elections are held this year. Unless millions of voters who don’t have national IDs are able to register for the election before this coming winter then the election would almost certainly have to be postponed until next year. This election was supposed to be held back in 2015, parliament is still sitting three years after its mandate expired.

The European Union (EU) is providing 30 million euros to help fund the vote and want to see it take place this year and stated “The upcoming elections in Afghanistan will be key for democracy in the country.” However, donors fear that if the election is further delayed this will undermine the legitimacy of the political system in Afghanistan. The goal in Afghanistan is to register 14 million voters and issue 10 million new identity cards to have credible participation levels. But so far only 291,000 people have registered since the process began and officials fear that if security fears deepen than people may simply not register to vote and stay home.