The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group has claimed responsibility for two car bombings that killed at least two people in Afghanistan’s Mazar-i-Sharif district on Thursday, a week after a deadly attack on a Shi’ite mosque in the same city. city of northern Afghanistan.
“The targets were apparently Shiite passengers,” Balkh provincial police spokesman Asif Waziri told AFP, adding that 13 other people had been injured in the blasts.
These means of transportation were organized by the Shiite minority.
The two bombs were detonated a few minutes apart in two neighborhoods of the city, as many workers were returning home to break their Ramadan fast as night fell, Waziri explained.
“Afghanistan’s enemies are creating tensions and divisions among our people,” he added.
Images uploaded to social media sites show one of the two minibuses in the flames as the Taliban carry victims in another vehicle to transport them to hospitals.
The bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a mosque in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, killing at least 12 worshipers and wounding 58 others.
The number of bombings has dropped since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021, overthrowing the US-backed government. But jihadists, especially the Islamic State, continue to target those they consider heretics.
Thus, a bomb attack on April 22 hit a mosque of the Sufi minority during Friday prayers in Kunduz, also in northern Afghanistan. Official death toll: at least 36 dead, including children.
A few days earlier, a blast at a male seminary in the Shi’ite district of the Afghan capital, Kabul, had killed at least six people.
Afghan Shiites, most of whom are members of the Khazar community, which accounts for 10 to 20 percent of Afghanistan’s 38 million people, have been targeted by the ISIS for years now.
Taliban officials say their forces have crushed the ISIS. But analysts say the jihadist group continues to pose a major security threat to Afghanistan.
A spokesman for the Taliban government, Zambiola Mujahid, told AFP yesterday that many suspects had been arrested in connection with the recent attacks. He also noted that “adequate” security measures were taken against targets such as mosques and schools, adding that “we have now strengthened the guarding of such sites”.
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