![Locals gather around a minibus that was targeted by an ISIS bombing in May 25 in Mazar-e-Sharif, Balkh province. [Social media]](/cnmi_st/images/2022/05/26/35543-minibus_-739_416.webp)
KABUL -- The death toll from four bombs that ripped through minibuses and a mosque on Wednesday evening has risen to at least 16, officials said Thursday (May 26), with some of the attacks claimed by the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS).
At least 10 people were killed when three bombs placed on separate minibuses exploded in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, police and a health official said.
"The bombs were placed on three minibuses in different districts of the city," Balkh provincial police spokesman Asif Waziri told AFP, adding that 15 other people were wounded.
Three women were among those killed in the blasts, said Najibullah Tawana, director of the Balkh health department.
![Relatives of bomb victims gather outside a hospital in Mazar-e-Sharif on May 25. [AFP]](/cnmi_st/images/2022/05/26/35541-000_32b46qd-739_416.webp)
Relatives of bomb victims gather outside a hospital in Mazar-e-Sharif on May 25. [AFP]
![An injured bomb blast victim rests inside a hospital in Mazar-e-Sharif on May 25. [AFP]](/cnmi_st/images/2022/05/26/35540-000_32b46te-739_416.webp)
An injured bomb blast victim rests inside a hospital in Mazar-e-Sharif on May 25. [AFP]
Hours after the explosions, ISIS claimed responsibility for the minibus attacks on social media.
It said on Telegram its "soldiers" targeted three minibuses with improvised explosive devices.
Later on Wednesday, another bomb exploded inside Hazrat-e Zakaria mosque in Kabul.
"We hadn't finished the prayer when a loud sound was heard," Mohammad Luqman, a witness, told TOLOnews. "I received a call to ask if I was ok. When we went to the mosque, we saw dead bodies lying on the ground and the wounded also."
Early Thursday, Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran tweeted that six people had been killed in that blast and another 18 wounded.
The bomb was placed inside a fan in the mosque, said authorities.
Senesless violence
"The United States condemns the cowardly terrorist attacks in Mazar-i-Sharif and Kabul that claimed innocent Afghan lives," US Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West tweeted on Thursday.
"This violence serves no purpose," he said, expressing condolences to the victims' families.
Rina Amiri, US special envoy for Afghan Women, Girls and Human Rights, also reacted to the blasts.
"The heinous attacks in Mazar & Kabul serve no purpose but to inflict further devastation on innocent Afghans who have suffered enough," she tweeted.
The priority for Afghanistan must be "preventing these horrid attacks & addressing the security & needs of all Afghans", she said.
'Crimes against humanity'
All the victims in the Mazar-e-Sharif blasts were Shia Hazaras, according to reports.
It was still unclear whether the Kabul bombing targeted any specific community, although it also bears the hallmarks of ISIS's local Khorasan branch (ISIS-K).
ISIS-K has repeatedly targeted Shia and minorities such as Sufis, who follow a mystical branch of Islam.
Such attacks "reflect elements of an organisational policy" and so bear the "hallmarks of crimes against humanity", Richard Bennett, United Nations special rapporteur on Human Rights in Afghanistan, told reporters on Thursday.
Bennett called for an investigation as he wrapped up his visit to Afghanistan, where he met with officials and visited some of the sites targeted by recent attacks.
Dozens of civilians were killed in Kabul and other cities in primarily sectarian attacks during the holy month of Ramadan, which ended on April 30 in Afghanistan. Some attacks were claimed by ISIS.
On April 29, at least 10 people were killed in a Sunni mosque in Kabul in an attack that appeared to have targeted members of the minority Sufi community who were performing rituals.
ISIS claimed responsibility for two bombings of minibuses that killed at least nine people on April 28 in Mazar-e-Sharif.
On April 21, a bomb at a Shia mosque in Mazar-e-Sharif killed at least 12 worshippers and wounded many more.
The deadliest attack during Ramadan came in the northern city of Kunduz, where another bomb targeting Sufi worshippers tore through a mosque on April 22.
At least 33 people were killed in that blast and scores more were wounded.
Curses on this world community that, on the one hand, they kill Afghans under different names, and on the other hand, they condemn it. It has been twenty years since the word of condemnation has been circulating. ISIS is a group formed by the same international intelligence agencies whose main task is to kill. And all attacks carried out in Afghanistan are carried out by Pakistan, and Pakistan is carrying out the project of killings in Afghanistan. Then they blamed ISIS, and ISIS claimed its responsibility. Afghans are not people of war. Foreign wars and projects are being implemented in Afghanistan. Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, the USA, the UK, and others are the countries that are implementing their projects in Afghanistan through Pakistan's intelligence, and for years they have been shedding Afghan blood like a flood and turning Afghanistan into rubble.
Reply6 Comment
According to Iran Press News Agency, ((Admiral Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, at the fourth meeting of the Regional Security Dialogue in Dushanbe, while pointing out that the terrorism and extremism are the important factors of insecurity in Afghanistan said: Unfortunately, we have alarming evidence of the presence and involvement of some countries in the region and beyond in transmitting and directing terrorists into Afghanistan.)) Ali Shamkhani's remarks are the cause of deep concern for the Afghans on the one hand, and raise many doubts on the other. I read some news on Salaam Times in which Iran was accused of misusing the activities of ISIS and the killing of Shias in Afghanistan and trying to spread ethnic divisions in Afghanistan. Does Iran want to exaggerate the problem of ISIS by accusing the countries of the region or beyond and use it as an excuse to interfere in the internal affairs of Afghanistan? Also, if Iran really has solid documents and evidences about the transformation of terrorists to Afghanistan, why it doesn’t disclose them? Why does it want to make Afghanistan Central Asia's neighbors pessimistic about Afghanistan? Iran has been repeatedly accused of supporting the Taliban and terrorist groups over the past 20 years, and its dream was to establish a terrorist state in Afghanistan, so it is impossible for a terrorist country to worry about the spread of terrorist activities in Afghanistan, but it only tries to intimi
ReplyThe bastard and prostitute-broker Ali Shamkhani is a terrorist himself. His filthy Revolutionary Guards are terrorists and Khamenei is the father of terrorists. Iran is worse than Israel. Pakistan is even worse than Iran. Curses to the Iranian, Pakistani and Israeli intelligence services who have turned the world into a hell for all human beings.
Reply6 Comment
Although the people were upset with the collapse of Afghanistan's legal system and the occupation of Pakistan, they went beyond this in the hope of relative security and said nothing against the Taliban and endured everything. But the bloody attacks that have killed and injured hundreds of Afghans over the past few months, especially during the last month of Ramadan, have shattered Afghans' hopes for relative security. It has angered all Afghans and once again made them fearful that if all the segments of the society are not united, for example, the Taliban and the Democrats, the governmental and the non-governmental, the Emirati and the non-Emirati, the North and the South, they will be as miserable as now. All of them will be pushed together into the pit of humiliation and misery. All will suffer heavy losses in the traps of the intelligence of the neighboring countries and will face the same final fate that other sleeping nations of the world have faced in history.
Reply6 Comment
Along with other legacies, a very bad legacy left by the United States and its international allies in Afghanistan is the existence of more than 20 terrorist groups with terrorist goals against the security and stability of the region and the world. By expressing concern, useless condemnation, and verbal grief, the United States and its allies cannot shirk from their responsibilities. According to unofficial figures (because the Taliban do not allow the media to publish actual figures), recent ISIS attacks in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif have caused the killing of more than 50 people and the injuring many more. Now I want to ask that would the condemnation of these attacks by Mr. West and Ms. Rina Amiri reduce the grief of the families of the victims? During the Republic, when an attack or an explosion was occurring, the government officials instead of accepting responsibility, were issuing condemnation statements which were already written and they were thinking that by issuing the statements. they would defeat the terrorism. But the terrorism was not defeated and with the help of Pakistani intelligence, it could collapse the republic. US officials are doing the same now, and I'm afraid that US officials will be too busy condemning these attacks and the ISIS will seize Kabul.
Reply6 Comment
Many Western scholars believe that ISIS is an organization created by many international intelligence agencies whose project is implemented by Pakistan's intelligence agency. Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies are implementing the projects of Saudi Arabia, Britain, China, and several other major powers in Afghanistan and the region in exchange for money. This illegitimate son of the British (Pakistan) formed seven jihadi groups to destroy Afghanistan forty-five years ago and ran the project until it turned Kabul into ruins. At the behest of Britain and with the financial support of Saudi Arabia, they took the project of creating the Taliban that pushed Afghanistan back to the Middle Ages. Then they took the ISIS project. The Saudi-British project is designed to kill Shiites and fan the flames of war between Shiites and Sunnis in Afghanistan. They are doing all this under the name of Islam and defaming Islam.
Reply6 Comment