Suicide attack on Afghan voter registration center kills 57

Afghan residents inspect the site of a suicide bombing outside a voter registration centre in Kabul on April 22, 2018.

(Image credit: Shah Marai/Getty Images)

last updated 22 April 2018

At least 57 people were killed and more than 100 wounded by a suicide bombing at a voter registration center at a school in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sunday. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, which targeted would-be voters lining up to receive ID cards for a parliamentary election scheduled for October.

"There were women, children," said Bashir Ahmad, who was nearby when the bomb exploded. "Everyone had come to get their identity cards." This is the deadliest attack Afghanistan has suffered since January.

Afghanistan's chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, condemned the incident on Twitter. "I stand with those affected by this coward attack," he wrote. "Our resolve for fair and transparent election will continue and terrorists won't win against the will of the Afghan people."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.