Kabul Sikh Temple Attack: Gunman Kills 25

The war rages even as coronavirus spreads, with the latest attack killing at least 25 at a Sikh temple in Kabul. KABUL, Afghanistan — Militants stormed a crowded Sikh temple and housing complex in Kabul on Wednesday, killing at least 25 people in a six-hour siege just as war-ravaged Afghanistan is starting to struggle with the global coronavirus contagion. The attackers, believed to be Islamic State extremists, struck on a day when nationwide cases of the virus nearly doubled from 24 hours earlier. Officials feared the actual spread is even wider.

The western city of Herat, with roughly 4 million residents, reported 58 positive cases and was put under lockdown. The area shares a porous border with Iran, where the contagion has been especially severe. After the attack in Kabul, the police cordoned off the area and special forces officers wore protective masks to guard against coronavirus infection. The attack began when a heavily armed militant entered a complex that houses dozens of families from the Sikh religious minority and contains a temple.

Ahmad Tariq Arian, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said that eight civilians were wounded and 80 hostages were rescued. Photos provided by security officials showed a large number of crying children among the civilians rescued. Anarkali Kaur Honaryar, a member of the Afghan Senate who had been inside the complex helping load bodies into ambulances, said only one of those killed was a Muslim, who was guarding the temple. The rest were Sikhs, she said, including several women and one child.

Islamic State loyalists claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the Site Intelligence Group, which monitors militant media sites. Once waging frequent deadly attacks against vulnerable targets in Afghanistan’s urban centers, the Islamic State has shrunk in size because of sustained military operations by Afghan and American forces as well as hostility from Taliban insurgents, who view Islamic State militants as trespassers on their turf. Hindus and Sikhs, once numbering in the hundreds of thousands in the country, are oppressed minorities who have been frequently attacked in recent years. Only a couple hundred Hindu and Sikh families remain in Afghanistan, with the rest migrating to India or the West over the past four decades.

Most attacks around the country are waged by the Taliban, who continue to embrace violence as leverage despite signing a peace deal with the United States that has been expected to lower the bloodshed in Afghanistan as the parties continue negotiations for a political settlement. The peace process is hamstrung by disagreements between the Taliban and the Afghan government over a plan to exchange prisoners, a step meant to advance efforts to establish a power-sharing government among the Afghan sides. On Wednesday, negotiations took place via video conference to try to resolve the issue.