Alwaght- Dozens of people have been killed in bomb attacks in two Afghan cities, including 31 people at a Shiite mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif in Balkh province which has been claimed by the ISIS terrorist group.
“Blood and fear are everywhere,” said Ahmad Zia Zindani, a spokesman for the Balkh provincial public health department.
“People were screaming” while seeking news of their relatives at the hospital, Zindani said.
“Many residents were also coming to donate blood,” he said.
In Kunduz, at least four people were killed and 18 wounded by a bomb hidden in a bicycle that targeted a vehicle carrying mechanics working for the Taliban government, police spokesman Obaidullah Abedi said.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said the roadside blast targeted a van of military mechanics and that school students were among the wounded.
Another roadside blast in Kabul wounded three, including a child, he added.
On Tuesday, two blasts outside a school in a Hazara community neighborhood of Kabul killed at least six people and wounded more than two dozen others.
The Hazara community, mostly Shiite, is the poorest of the country’s ethnic groups and accounts for about 22 percent of Afghanistan’s population. Its members have been targeted in several large-scale kidnappings and killings across Afghanistan in the past.
Since the Taliban’s takeover of the country, several attacks are reported each week throughout Afghanistan, including some claimed by ISIS.
The Taliban, who had previously ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, took power again on August 15 as the US was in the middle of a chaotic troop withdrawal. The group announced the formation of a caretaker government on September 7. No country has yet recognized their rule.
