A day after suspected IS gunmen stormed Kabul University which killed at least 19 people and wounded 22, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Monday said the nation will observe day-long national mourning on Tuesday. 

“The enemies of knowledge and progress continued to terrorize our people and perpetrated a vicious terrorist attack on Kabul University,” said President Ghani as reported by Tolonews. 

The Taliban denied their involvemen but later in the evening terror group IS claimed the responsibility for the gruesome attack. IS claimed their target was new judges and investigators who graduated from the university recently.

The attack sent a shock wave across the nation, with many parents and relatives dialing their wards who were there in the university at the time of the assault. As the seize ended, gruesome and heart-wrenching pictures of dead students lying in the pool of blood in their classrooms surfaced on social media platforms. 

Earlier also IS has targeted educational centers in Afghanistan. Just a little more than a week before, an educational center in the western part of the capital city was targeted by a suicide bomber, killing 24 people, mostly students, there. 

Though the IS claimed the responsibility for the Monday attack on Kabul University, confusion persists regarding the number of attackers involved. IS, in its claim, said two of its attackers were involved in the act and released their names. On the other hand, the Ministry of Interior, however, claimed there were three attackers. The Ghani government blamed the Taliban for the attack. 

Calling the attack “horrendous,” US special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad said, “the attack is not an opportunity to score points against each other.” Khalilzad asked the Afghan warring parties to “unite for peace” as there is a “common enemy” and asked them to work together to deny space to IS or any other terrorist organization to carry out such inhumane acts.