The attack killed as many as 44 Afghan police and soldiers, provincial officials said It is the latest in a series that have killed dozens of members of the security forces in provinces across Afghanistan KABUL: A suicide bomber killed 48 students, mostly from the Shiite community, in an attack on a private education center in the Afghan capital on Wednesday. The attack also left 70 people injured. Daesh affiliates have carried out similar strikes in the area in recent years. Daesh has not claimed responsibility for the strike and Taliban insurgents immediately denied the group was behind the blast. Panicked survivors and nearby residents faced traffic-choked roads as they took victims to hospitals. “It was a very powerful explosion and a heart-wrenching one,” Ali Reza, a resident, told reporters near the scene of the attack. Waheed Majroh, an Afghan health ministry spokesman, said 48 students died in the attack. Some of the injured were in critical condition and the toll may go higher, officials warned. President Ashraf Ghani immediately condemned the attack that "martyred and wounded the innocent" — students attending class — and ordered an investigation. The bombing comes weeks after two Daesh suicide bombers struck a Shiite mosque, killing more than 30 worshippers and wounding scores of others in Gardez town. Years of attacks by Daesh affiliates, particularly against Shiite mosques and shrines, forced the community to accept weapons from the government for their protection. The attacks by Daesh are another headache for Ghani, whose government is suffering from frequent deadly attacks by Taliban militants. The attack comes amid a particularly bloody week in Afghanistan that has seen Taliban attacks kill scores of Afghan troops and civilians. It was not immediately clear how the bomber managed to sneak into the building, used by the Shiite community as an education center, in the Dasht-i Barcha area of Kabul, AP reported. Dawlat Hossain, father of 18-year-old student Fareba who had left her class just a few minutes before the bombing but was still inside the compound, was on his way to meet his daughter and started running when he heard the explosion. Hossain told AP how when he entered Fareba"s classroom, he saw parts of human bodies all over student desks and benches. "There was blood everywhere, all over the room, so scary and horrible," he said. After finding out that his daughter was safe, he helped move the wounded to hospitals. Fareba was traumatized that so many of her friends were killed, but Hossain said she was lucky to be alive. The explosion initially set off gunfire from Afghan guards in the area, leading to assumptions that there were more attackers involved, but officials later said all indications were that there was only one bomber.