The Islamic State (IS) organization claimed responsibility for two bomb attacks against two minibuses which killed at least nine people on Thursday, April 28, in Mazar-e Sharif, maintaining a climate of terror in this city in northern Afghanistan. .
“The targets appear to be Shia passengers”Balkh provincial police spokesman Asif Waziri told Agence France-Presse (AFP), adding that 13 people were injured in the blasts.
The two blasts occurred within minutes of each other in different parts of the city as workers returned home to break the Ramadan fast, Waziri said. “The enemies of Afghanistan are creating tensions and divisions among our people”he added.
Footage circulating on social media showed one of the minibuses in flames, while Taliban extricate victims from the other vehicle to transport them to hospitals. The blasts came a week after a bomb attack on a Shiite mosque in Mazar-e Sharif killed at least 12 worshipers and injured 58.
Need for increased security
Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021 after overthrowing US-backed authorities there, the number of bombings has declined but jihadists and IS have continued their attacks on targets they deem heretical.
Another bomb attack hit a Sufi minority mosque on April 22 during Friday prayers in Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, killing at least 36 people, including children. A few days earlier, explosions in a boys’ school in a Shiite district of Kabul had killed six people.
Shia Afghans, mostly from the Hazara community which constitutes between 10% and 20% of Afghanistan’s 38 million inhabitants, have long been the target of IS. Taliban officials insist their forces defeated the jihadist group, but analysts say the organization still poses a major security threat to the country.
Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP on Thursday that several arrests had been made in connection with the recent attacks. « [Elles] targeted buildings that were not protected enough, such as mosques and a school, but now we have increased security in such places”he added.