(Kabul) At least sixteen people were killed on Wednesday in Afghanistan in four bomb attacks, three against minibuses in Mazar-i-Sharif (North), claimed by IS, and one against a mosque in the capital Kabul, according to the authorities.
Updated at 12:14 a.m.
In Mazar-i-Sharif, the big northern city, “the bombs were planted in three minibuses in different parts of the city,” Balkh provincial police spokesman Asif told AFP. Waziri.
At least ten people died and about fifteen others were injured, according to the police and the health services.
The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group claimed responsibility for the attacks on Wednesday evening.
“Caliphate soldiers detonated two bombs placed on two buses […] and a third bomb on a third bus,” ISIS said via its Telegram channels.
According to Najibullah Tawana, head of the Balkh health service, three women are among the ten killed in the minibus explosions.
In Kabul, another bomb attack targeted a mosque, killing at least six people and injuring 18 others, according to a last report given overnight from Wednesday to Thursday on Twitter by the spokesman of the police of the capital. , Khalid Zadran.
The number of attacks has declined in the country since the Taliban took power in August, but a series of deadly bomb attacks, in which dozens of people were killed, hit the country at the end of April, during the holy month of Ramadan.
Bomb in a fan
In Kabul on Wednesday evening, witnesses saw several ambulances speeding towards the scene of the explosion, which has not been claimed so far.
The Interior Ministry said the bomb was planted inside a fan in the mosque.
Some of the deadly attacks that hit the country at the end of April were claimed by the jihadist group Islamic State (IS), and had targeted in particular the Shiite Hazara minority, considered heretical by IS.
On April 28, already in Mazar-i-Sharif, bomb attacks, claimed by the IS, against two minibuses carrying Shiite passengers, had killed nine people.
On April 21, a Shiite mosque in this city was also the target of a bomb. At least 12 people were killed and 58 injured, and again IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
The next day, at least 36 people, including children, were killed in Kunduz (northeast) in another bomb attack against a Sunni mosque, frequented by Sufis, during Friday prayers.
In Kabul, ten people were killed on April 29 in an explosion in a Sunni mosque after Friday prayers.
The Taliban are trying to minimize the threat from Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIS-K), the regional branch of ISIS, and are waging a ruthless fight against the group, which they have been fighting for years.
They multiplied raids, particularly in the eastern province of Nangarhar, and arrested hundreds of men accused of being part of it.
They have claimed for a few months to have defeated EI-K, but analysts believe that the extremist group still constitutes the main security challenge for the new Afghan power.