Three Spanish tourists and an Afghan were killed by bullets yesterday Friday late afternoon in Bamiyancity that attracts foreign visitors, to central Afghanistanaccording to official sources in Kabul and Madrid.

The deadly attack is the first against foreign tourists in Afghanistan since the Taliban returned on August 15, 2021.

“Three foreigners and one Afghan were killed”, while another “four foreigners and three Afghans were injured” by gunfire, the spokesman clarified Afghan Ministry of Interior Abdul Mateen Khaniwithout specifying whether the attack had one or more perpetrators.

At Madridan AFP source at Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain confirmed last night that all three foreigners who lost their lives had citizenship of the kingdom.

“Three Spaniards have been killed and at least one more wounded by bullets in Afghanistan,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The ministry is working (…) to clarify the circumstances, help the victims and communicate with their families,” she explained.

From the side of Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sanchez declared he was “shocked” by the “murder” of the Spanish tourists and assured that he was “monitoring the situation very closely”.

in Kabul, the representative of the Ministry of the Interior reported that four suspects were arrested, without going into further details.

The injured are citizens of Norway, Australia, Lithuania and Spain, according to information from a source in an Afghan hospital.

“I heard a series of shots,” said a resident, who declined to give his name, adding that “security forces immediately blocked the roads leading” to the site of the attack, near Bamiyan’s main market.

THE Bamiyanhome to the giant Buddhas dynamited by the Taliban in 2001, is Afghanistan’s top tourist destination.

In this province the largest member of the population are members of the Khazar minority, which consists of Shiites. Shiites are very often the target of bloody attacks by the Islamic State (IS) jihadist organization, with the most frequent method being the placement of explosives in vehicles.

In addition to attacks by IS’s local arm, security has been a wider problem in Afghanistan since the Taliban regained power in 2021 after 40 years of bloody war.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (as the de facto Taliban regime calls the country) strongly condemns this crime, expresses its deepest condolences to the families of the victims and guarantees that all criminals will be found and punished.” emphasized the representative of the Ministry of the Interior.

The killing of the tourists is bad news for the Asian country, one of the poorest in the world, which would like to see its tourism sector grow.

Despite the huge lack of infrastructure, and despite the fact that there are few cultural and archaeological sites left after decades of destruction and looting in the middle of wars, some flow of foreign tourists has begun to be recorded in the country with an extremely hospitable population and magnificent landscapes.

The number of foreign visitors to Afghanistan rose 120 percent year-on-year to nearly 5,200, according to official figures.

Foreign tourist who arrived last night in Herat (west) told a group on the WhatsApp platform: “We were captured by the Taliban while we were marching on the street. They took us to the ward and didn’t want to let us go because they said because of Bamiyan we are not safe.”

“Then they told us to go and have a quick dinner and not to roam the streets.”