Afghanistan vows to crush Daesh havens after attack

Afghanistan's president on Monday vowed to "eliminate" all safe havens of the Daesh group as the country marked a subdued 100th Independence Day after a horrific wedding attack claimed by the local Daesh affiliate.

President Ashraf Ghani's comments came as Afghanistan mourns at least 63 people, including children, killed in the Kabul bombing at a wedding hall late on Saturday night. Close to 200 others were wounded.

Afghan men carry the bodies of the victims of a suicide bomb blast at a wedding in Kabul. Reuters

Many outraged Afghans ask whether an approaching deal between the United States and the Taliban to end nearly 18 years of fighting — America's longest war — will bring peace to long-suffering civilians. The bomber detonated his explosives in the middle of a dancing crowd, and the Daesh affiliate later said he had targeted a gathering of minority Shiites, whom it views as apostates deserving of death.

Both the bride and groom survived, and in an emotional interview with local broadcaster TOLOnews the distraught groom, Mirwais Alani, said their lives were devastated within seconds.

A sharply worded Taliban statement questioned why the US failed to identify the attackers in advance. Another Taliban statement marking the Independence Day said to "leave Afghanistan to the Afghans." More than anything in its nearly year-long negotiations with the US, the Taliban want some 20,000 US and allied forces to withdraw from the country.

The US envoy in talks with the Taliban, Zalmay Khalilzad, on Sunday said the peace process should be accelerated to help Afghanistan defeat the Daesh affiliate.

But Ghani on Monday asserted that the Taliban, whom the US now hopes will help to curb the Daesh affiliate's rise, are just as much to blame. His government is openly frustrated at being sidelined from the US talks with the insurgent group, which regards the Afghan government as a US puppet.

Men prepare the coffins in a burial ceremony of the victims of a blast in a wedding in Kabul. Reuters

The Taliban "have created the platform for terrorists" with its own brutal assaults on schools, mosques and other public places over the years, the president said.

More than 32,000 civilians in Afghanistan have been killed in the past decade, the United Nations said earlier this year. More children were killed last year — 927 — than in any other over the past decade by all actors, the UN said, including in operations against insurgent hideouts carried out international forces.

"We will take revenge for every civilian drop of blood," Ghani declared. "Our struggle will continue against (Daesh), we will take revenge and will root them out." He urged the international community to join those efforts.

Associated Press