Suicide Attack During Ghani Visit Kills Almost 20 In Eastern Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide attack outside a building where President Ashraf Ghani was meeting with locals in eastern Afghanistan killed nearly 20 people on Sunday, officials said. Most of the victims were members of the Sikh and Hindu minority groups who were on their way to the meeting, residents said. The meeting was being held in the Nangahar governor’s compound in the heart of the province’s capital, Jalalabad, which lies near the border with Pakistan. “We have received 19 bodies and 20 wounded,” Najibullah Kamawal, the head of Nangahar public health department, said by phone. One of the victims was Awtar Singh Khalsa, a Sikh and the only non-Muslim candidate for the October parliamentary elections, a member of the community said. The Indian embassy condemned the attack. “We strongly condemn the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack in Jalalabad today which resulted in the death of 20 innocent Afghans, including 10 members of the Afghan Sikh community and injured more than 20 persons,” it said in a statement.