Eight people were killed and 18 others injured Friday in a bomb attack on a shopping street in a Shiite district of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, according to a new report from the Afghan police.
“Security teams are trying to find the perpetrators” of the attack, police said of the bomb, which exploded in a handcart on a busy shopping street in this western Kabul neighborhood.
“Explosives were placed in a vegetable cart, which exploded among passers-by”, in a busy shopping street in this western district of Kabul, Kabul police spokesman Khalid told AFP. Zadran.
The attack came as Shiites are due to commemorate Ashura on Monday, an important religious holiday when worshipers gather in mosques and take part in processions.
The Shiite community, which is essentially Hazara and represents between 10 and 20% of the Afghan population (about 40 million inhabitants), has been persecuted for a long time in this country with a Sunni majority.
The number of attacks has fallen in Afghanistan since the Taliban took power nearly a year ago, 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, and also at the end of May.
Most were claimed by the jihadist organization Islamic State (IS), which mainly targets Afghan religious minorities Shiites, Sufis and Sikhs. ISIS considers the Shia minority heretical.
The Taliban claim to have defeated ISIS in the country, but analysts believe that the extremist group is still the main security challenge for the new Afghan power.