Roundup: Terrorist attacks on election-related activities kill 36 in Afghanistan

KABUL, April 22 (Xinhua) -- Up to 36 people have been confirmed dead and 60 others sustained injuries as militants targeted election-related activities for the upcoming elections in the insurgency-battered Afghanistan on Sunday.

In the first attack which occurred in Dashti Barchi district of Kabul at around 10:00 a.m. local time (0530 GMT), 31 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 56 others injured, according to Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish and hospital sources.

Hundreds of people were lining up to obtain Tazkira or National Identity Card to vote in the upcoming parliamentary and district councils' elections slated for Oct. 20 when a suicide bomber blew himself up.

The first parliamentary election in the post-Taliban Afghanistan was held in 2005 while the second parliamentary polls took place in 2010.

The voter registration process started on April 14 for the next parliamentary polls.

The parliamentary votes, originally scheduled in early 2015 following the presidential election, have been repeatedly delayed.

The hardliner Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the deadly attack in Kabul, which has been widely condemned by Afghans as a coward terrorist attack and an attempt to sabotage the election process.

"The attack on the site of voters' registration here in Dashti Barchi area of Kabul is to sabotage the upcoming elections in the country," legislator Aref Rahmani told Xinhua.

In the northern Baghlan province, a roadside bombing killed five civilians and injured four others at around noon Sunday.

Anti-government militants have abducted three employees of the voters' registration service in the southern Ghor province and shot dead two guards of the registration site in the eastern Nangarhar province over the past week. Enditem