Kabul, April 19 (AFP\/APP): At least six people were killed and 24 wounded on Tuesday by two bomb blasts that struck a boys’ school in a Shiite Hazara neighbourhood of the Afghan capital, police and hospital staff said.<\/p>\n
The number of attacks in the country has significantly declined since the Taliban ousted the US-backed Afghan government in August, but the jihadist Islamic State group has claimed several attacks since then.<\/p>\n
Several bodies were strewn outside the gate of the Kabul school, alongside patches of blood, burnt books and school bags, according to images posted on social media.<\/p>\n
“We were leaving school and had just stepped out from the rear gate when the explosion occurred,” Ali Jan, a student who was wounded in the first blast, told AFP at a hospital.<\/p>\n
The second blast took place as rescuers arrived to ferry victims from the first explosion to hospitals.<\/p>\n
“When I heard of the blast I called one of my friends who studies at that school,” said wounded shopkeeper Murtaza.<\/p>\n
“His phone was switched off. Then I went to the site… and that’s when I was hit in the second blast.”<\/p>\n
Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran told AFP that the attack outside the Abdul Rahim Shahid school was caused by improvised explosive devices, killing six people.<\/p>\n
“These are preliminary figures. We are at the site and waiting for more details,” he said.<\/p>\n
Two hospitals confirmed they were treating a total of 24 people wounded in the blasts.<\/p>\n
Zadran said a third blast had occurred at an English language centre in the same area, but did not specify whether it was caused by an explosive.<\/p>\n
Zadran had earlier tweeted that three blasts had rocked the school.<\/p>\n
Outside the hospital, Taliban fighters beat back relatives of victims who had gathered, an AFP correspondent reported.<\/p>\n
– Back-to-back blasts –<\/p>\n
The Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood is mainly home to the Hazara community and has been previously targeted by the jihadist Islamic State group — a rival of the Taliban, also a hardline Sunni Islamist movement.<\/p>\n
The Hazara community, which makes up between 10 and 20 percent of the country’s 38 million people, has long been the target of mass-casualty attacks, some blamed on the Taliban during their 20-year insurgency.<\/p>\n
Since seizing power the Taliban have regularly carried out raids on suspected IS hideouts, mainly in the eastern Nangarhar province.<\/p>\n
Taliban officials insist their forces have defeated IS, but analysts say the jihadist group is a key security challenge.<\/p>\n
IS has claimed some of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan in recent years.<\/p>\n
In May last year at least 85 people — mainly girl students — were killed and about 300 wounded when three bombs exploded near their school in Dasht-e-Barchi.<\/p>\n
No group claimed responsibility, but in October 2020 IS claimed a suicide attack on an educational centre in the same area that killed 24, including students.<\/p>\n
In May 2020, the group was blamed for a bloody gun attack on a maternity ward of a hospital in the neighbourhood that killed 25 people, including new mothers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kabul, April 19 (AFP\/APP): At least six people were killed and 24 wounded on Tuesday by two bomb blasts that struck a boys’ school in a Shiite Hazara neighbourhood of the Afghan capital, police and hospital staff said. The number of attacks in the country […]<\/p>\n
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