Dozens Martyred, Injured as Blast Rips through Huge Kabul Protest

Local Editor

An explosion ripped through an area of Kabul Saturday where hundreds of minority Shiite Hazaras were protesting over a power line, police said, with eyewitnesses reporting a number of casualties.

At least 50 people were martyred and injured as the explosion ripped through the protest over a key power transmission line, officials at Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said.

Initial reports blamed a suicide bomber. Photographs posted on social media showed bodies apparently at the site of the explosion.

It was before the explosion went off that thousands from the country's Hazara minority gathered in the capital Kabul to demand changes to the route of the power transmission line.

Ambulances were struggling to reach the scene as authorities had overnight blocked key intersections with stacked shipping containers to prevent protesters from marching on the presidential palace.

Meanwhile, no group has so far claimed responsibility for the blast, but it comes in the middle of the Taliban's annual summer offensive, which the insurgents are ramping up after a brief lull during the recent holy fasting month of Ramadan.

"I was in the crowd of protesters when a loud bang occurred nearby. Many people have been killed or injured -- I am in deep shock," protest organizer Jawad Naji told AFP.

The demonstrators gathered to demand that a multi-million-dollar power line pass through their electricity-starved province of Bamiyan, one of the most deprived areas of Afghanistan with a large Hazara population.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team