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At least 63 people have been killed and scores wounded in an explosion targeting a wedding in the Afghan capital, officials said yesterday, the deadliest attack in Kabul this year. 

The suicide blast took place on Saturday evening in the men’s reception area of the Dubai City wedding hall in western Kabul, in a minority Shia neighbourhood, packed with people celebrating a marriage.

Women and children were among the casualties, interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said yesterday. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) group claimed responsibility for the attack yesterday. 

The attack came as the Taliban and the United States are trying to negotiate an agreement on the withdrawal of US forces in exchange for a Taliban commitment on security and peace talks with Afghanistan’s US-backed government.

The Taliban denied any involvement, calling Saturday’s blast “forbidden and unjustifiable”, but Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, said that the group “cannot absolve themselves of blame, for they provide platform for terrorists”.

In a series of tweets yesterday, Ghani strongly condemned the “inhumane attack” and called for an “extraordinary security meeting to review and prevent such security lapses.”

The blast occurred near the stage where musicians were and “all the youths, children and all the people who were there were killed,” witness Gul Mohammad said.

In the aftermath of the attack, images from inside the hall showed blood-stained bodies on the ground along with pieces of flesh and torn clothes, hats, sandals and bottles of mineral water.

Charlotte Bellis, reporting from an emergency hospital in central Kabul, where many of the injured were being treated, said: “Dozens of people are waiting for any news of loved ones.

“People have been ferried here all night, the wounded and also the dead, people caught up in this explosion,” she added. 

One witness, Sahi, said he was at the back of the wedding hall when the explosion happened.  

“It was very big,” he told Al Jazeera. “I fell down where I was. When I stood up I saw tables and people were scattered everywhere. The scene was awful. My brother was injured. Most of my friends were killed.”

Ahmad Omid, another survivor, said that about 1 200 guests had been invited to the wedding for his father’s cousin. “I was with the groom in the other room when we heard the blast and then I couldn’t find anyone. Everyone was lying all around the hall.”

Sunni Muslim armed groups, including the Taliban and ISIL have repeatedly attacked the Shia Hazara minorities in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan over the years.

Fighters have periodically struck Afghan weddings, which are seen as easy targets because they frequently lack rigorous security precautions.

On July 12, at least six people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a wedding ceremony in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar. ISIL, which has a growing footprint in the region, claimed the blast. At least 40 people were killed in an explosion at a wedding hall in Kabul in November 2018.

The latest attack shattered more than a week of relative calm in the Afghan capital.

On August 7, a Taliban car bomb aimed at Afghan security forces detonated on the same road, killing 14 people and wounding 145 — most of them women, children and other civilians. — AP