Death toll rises to 35 in Afghan school blast

KABUL: The death toll from a suicide bombing on a Kabul classroom has risen to 35, the UN said on Saturday. Shiite Hazara women who bore the brunt of the attack staged a defiant protest against the genocide of their minority community.

On Friday a suicide attacker blew himself up in a Kabul study hall as hundreds of pupils were taking tests in preparation for university entrance exams in the city's Dasht-e Barchi area.

The western neighbourhood is a predominantly Shiite Muslim enclave and home to the minority Hazara community - a historically oppressed group that has been targeted in some of Afghanistan's most brutal attacks in recent years.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan UNAMA said that at least 35 deaths were caused by the attack, with an additional 82 wounded.

It said more than 20 of the killed were girls and women.

The UN mission's casualty figure is higher than the toll Kabul authorities have given.

An interior ministry official told AFP anonymously on Saturday that 25 people were killed and 33 wounded in the attack on the Kaaj Higher Educational Centre - updating an earlier toll of 20 killed and 27 wounded.

Security has been a sensitive topic for the Taliban since returning to power last August, and the hardliners have often been keen to downplay attacks challenging their regime.

On Saturday dozens of Hazara women defied the Taliban's ban on rallies to protest the latest bloodshed in their community.

Around 50 women chanted, Stop Hazara genocide, it is not a crime to be a Shiite as they marched past a hospital in Dasht-e-Barchi where several victims of the attack were treated.

The protesters, dressed in black hijabs and headscarves, carried banners that read: Stop killing Hazaras, an AFP correspondent reported.

Witnesses told AFP that the suicide attacker detonated in the women's section of the gender-segregated study hall.

We staged a protest to demand our rights. Protesters gathered in front of the hospital and chanted slogans as dozens of heavily armed Taliban, some carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers, kept watch.

Since the Taliban returned to power, women's protests have become risky, with numerous demonstrators detained and rallies broken up by Taliban forces firing shots in the air.

No group claimed responsibility for Friday's attack.

The jihadist Islamic State IS group regards Shiites as heretics and has previously claimed attacks in the area targeting girls, schools and mosques.

The Taliban regard the Hazara community as heathens, and rights groups accuse the Islamists of targeting them during their 20-year insurgency against the US-backed government.

Since returning to office, the Taliban have pledged to protect minorities and clamp down on security threats.

Amnesty International said Friday's attack was a shamefaced reminder of the inaptitude and failure of the Taliban as de facto authorities to protect the people of Afghanistan In May last year, before the Taliban's return to power. At least 85 people - mostly girls - were killed and about 300 were wounded when three bombs were exploded near their school in Dasht-e- Barchi.

No group claimed responsibility, but a year earlier IS claimed a suicide attack on an educational centre in the same area that killed 24.

IS has emerged as a key security challenge for the Taliban, but officials claim that their forces have defeated the jihadists.