JALALABAD, Afghanistan — The Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, blamed the Islamic State group for a suicide bombing here on Saturday that killed 33 civilians. If the extremist group’s responsibility is confirmed, it would suggest a major escalation of the its activities in Afghanistan.
A bomber wearing an explosive vest attacked a crowd of people waiting to collect their pay at the Kabul Bank branch here, killing 33 and wounding more than 100 in the worst suicide attack this year, according to the Afghan police. All of the victims were civilians, the police said.
“Today the deadly attack in Nangarhar Province — who claimed responsibility?†said Mr. Ghani, speaking on national television during a visit to northern Badakhshan Province, which has been hit hard by recent Taliban attacks. “Taliban did not claim responsibility, but Daesh claimed responsibility.†Daesh is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL.
If Islamic State militants did carry out the attack it would be the first time that they had struck so far from their Middle East home ground, and the first serious terrorist attack attributed to them in Afghanistan.
The blast at the bank was one of three separate explosions heard in Jalalabad, the capital of the eastern province of Nangarhar, in quick succession around 8 a.m. Saturday, according to police.
The Taliban spokesman for eastern Afghanistan, Zabiullah Mujahid, disavowed the bank attack soon after it happened, denying in three different languages on Twitter that Taliban insurgents had been behind it. “We condemn/deny involvement,†Mr. Mujahid wrote in one post on Twitter.
In 2011, the Taliban claimed responsibility for an even deadlier attack on the same branch of Kabul Bank in Jalalabad, in which seven suicide attackers killed 38 bank customers, also on a payday. Many Afghans collect their salaries directly from banks as a safeguard against the country’s rampant corruption.
Reached by cellphone at an undisclosed location, Mr. Mujahid repeated his denials that the Taliban insurgents had anything to do with Saturday’s bombing, but he did not directly repudiate reports circulating on social media that the Islamic State was responsible for the attack.
“On ISIS we don’t comment,†Mr. Mujahid said. “We haven’t commented on them in the past and we will not say anything now. We are responsible for the war in this country, and that is all we can comment and give views on.†He said the Taliban would investigate the attack and “then I will comment and say who was behind it.â€
President Ghani did not elaborate on his statement that the Islamic State had claimed responsibility for the Jalalabad attack, and it was not clear where he had obtained that information. Pahjwok News, an Afghan news agency, reported that a former Pakistani Taliban figure named Shahidullah Shahid said that ISIS had claimed responsibility. But there has been no confirmation that Mr. Shahid speaks for ISIS, whose nearest confirmed base of operations is 1,500 miles to the west, in Iraq.
There have been reports of ISIS recruiting activities in Afghanistan, especially in the southern part of the country. But the bombing on Saturday is the first instance of a significant terrorist attack said to be claimed by the group anywhere in Afghanistan national capital, Kabul.
In February, an American drone strike in southern Helmand Province killed a former Taliban commander, Mullah Abdul Rauf Khadim, who claimed to have switched his allegiance to ISIS.
Reports were circulating on social media in Afghanistan on Saturday showing a photograph said to be the Jalalabad suicide bomber before the attack, dressed in Afghan-style clothing and with a handmade ISIS flag behind him. The authenticity of the photograph could not be immediately confirmed.
Fazel Ahmad Sherzad, the police chief of Nangarhar Province, put the death toll at 22 and the number of wounded at more than 50. But the head of the provincial health department, Najibullah Kamawal, said that hospitals had already received the bodies of 33 victims, along with more than 100 wounded.
The first of the three blasts in Jalalabad on Saturday morning occurred at a religious shrine and apparently involved a planted bomb, not a suicide attacker; only two people were wounded. Seconds later, according to the police, the suicide bomber at the bank detonated a vest packed with explosives.
A short time later, the police said, they discovered a third bomb in a motorcycle parked in front of a branch of the Central Bank of Afghanistan, and they detonated it under controlled conditions to ensure that no one was hurt.
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