Kabul in mourning after deadliest attack in 15 years

Kabul was plunged into mourning on Sunday after its deadliest attack in 15 years killed 80 people, left hundreds more injured, and sparked concern that the Islamic State militant group was seeking to expand its foothold in Afghanistan.

Bodies were still being collected from morgues as the first burials were conducted in the west of the city. Some families were still searching for missing relatives on Sunday, gathering outside hospitals to read the names posted on the walls, and checking morgues.

The site of the attack, which the Afghan president has renamed as "Martyr's Square", remained littered with scorched metal, charred flesh and personal items including shoes, ID cards and protest banners with messages such as "Don't eliminate us".

Graves were dug with shovels and excavators at a nearby hilltop cemetary, where coffins were brought in, draped in traditional burial shrouds.

Several protesters defiantly camped there overnight, holding candlelight vigils and reciting Koranic verses even though the government announced a 10-day ban on public gatherings on security grounds.

The attack on Saturday targeted a protest march by members of the Hazara minority, Shia Muslims reviled by IS, a Sunni group.

Three suicide bombers worked in tandem in the attacks, according to the Ministry of the Interior. While one bomb was detonated, a second bomb exploded prematurely and a third bomber was shot dead by police.  

Afghan president Mohammed Ashraf Ghani has called for a national day of mourning on Sunday and vowed revenge.

“I promise you that I will avenge the blood of our loved ones on the perpetrators of this crime, wherever they are,” he said.

The protestors were marching to demand that their impoverished home province be included in a major new electricity line project. The dead reportedly include Afghan journalist Hussiani Mohammadi.

The Taliban, Afghanistan's most prominent Islamist militant group, condemned the attack, accusing IS of seeking to start a civil war. The UN mission in Afghanistan described the attack as a "war crime". The National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan's main intelligence agency, said the attack was masterminded by Abu Ali, an IS commander in Nangarhar's volatile Achin district.

The Hazaras, who live mainly in the centre of Afghanistan, have long complained of discrimination. During Taliban rule in the late 1990s, many of them fled to Pakistan, Iran and Tajikistan.

Some Hazaras were furious at both the government and their own political leaders who they claimed had exploited the grievances of their community at longstanding discrimination to shore up their own power bases.