KABUL, Afghanistan, August 16, 2018 (AP) — Gunmen besieged a compound belonging to the Afghan intelligence service in Kabul on Thursday, police said, as the city's Shi'ite residents held funeral services for the victims of a horrific suicide bombing the previous day that left 34 dead. Police officer Abdul Rahman told The Associated Press from the location of the morning siege in a northwestern neighbourhood of Kabul that the gunmen were holed up in a partially constructed building near the compound from where they were opening fire. The shooting — which underscored the near-daily, persistent threats in war-battered Afghanistan — was sporadic and it wasn't immediately clear how many gunmen are involved in the assault. Afghan security personnel have surrounded the building and have the situation under control, he said. Kabul's police spokesman, Hashmat Stanekzi, said there were no immediate reports of casualties. Authorities, meanwhile, revised the death toll from Wednesday's bombing in Kabul's neighbourhood of Dasht-e-Barchi to 34 killed, not 48. Most of the victims were young men and women, high school graduates preparing for university entrance exams in the Shi'ite area's educational centre when the bomber walked into the building and blew himself up. The city's hospitals were overwhelmed in the immediate aftermath of the bombing as officials collected data on the casualties, leading to the confusion and the wrong toll. The Dasht-e-Barchi area is populated by members of Afghanistan's minority ethnic Hazaras — a Shi'ite community that has in the past been targeted by similar large-scale attacks such as the Wednesday bombing, which also wounded 56 people, according to Health Ministry spokesman Wahid Majroh. No one has so far claimed responsibility for the bombing but officials blame the Islamic State group, which considers Shi'ites to be heretics and frequently targets them, attacking their mosques, schools and cultural centres. In the past two years, there have been at least 13 attacks on the Shi'ite community in Kabul alone. Fifteen of the victims' bodies were taken on Thursday to a Hazara community compound in Kabul where a mass funeral service was being held. The remaining victims will be taken to their villages to be buried there, said Gulam Hassan, the cousin of one of the victims. The attacks come at the end of more than a week of assaults that have left scores of Afghan troops and civilians dead. The attacks also show how militants are still able to stage large-scale attacks, even in the capital of Kabul, and undermine efforts by Afghan forces to provide security and stability on their own. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has condemned the "terrorist" attack on the Shi'ite centre in Kabul that "martyred and wounded the innocent" — students attending class — and ordered an investigation into the attack.
