KABUL, Afghanistan — An explosion killed at least 20 individuals and wounded dozens of others in Afghanistan’s capital Saturday, native officers stated, and lots of the victims had been feminine college students.
Details of the assault in entrance of Sayed Ul-Shuhada highschool had been murky. It is unclear if there have been a number of explosions, if it was a coordinated assault, or concerned a automotive bomb or a suicide vest. But ambulances raced throughout town towards the positioning into the night.
The blast — and the potential focusing on of feminine college students — comes as rights teams and others have raised fears that the looming American troop withdrawal will endanger the progress that girls have made in the patriarchal society in latest years. Many concern that if the Taliban widen their grip over components of the nation, they may reimpose the oppressive rules they enforced underneath their regime in the 1990s.
Sayed Ul-Shuhada hosts lessons for boys in the morning and for ladies in the afternoon. The blast occurred round four p.m.
No group has claimed duty for the assault, and the variety of wounded and lifeless is more likely to enhance. Streets and roads had been packed Saturday as Kabul’s residents ready for the top of the holy month of Ramadan.
Dr. Mohammad Dawood Danish, the pinnacle of the Mohammad Ali Jinnah hospital in Kabul, stated that 20 our bodies and greater than 40 wounded individuals had been transferred to his hospital. Most of them had been college students, he stated.
“The health condition of a number of girls is critical,” Dr. Danish stated.
The Taliban condemned the assault on social media.
Mohammad Hussain Jawhari, a resident of the realm, stated three rockets had been fired at the gates whereas the ladies had been leaving the varsity. Another eyewitness stated the blasts had been brought on by a number of automotive bombs. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry stated the explanation for the explosion was unclear.
“I am on my way to the hospital — two relatives are missing. I checked at least 10 hospitals and they were nowhere to be found,” Mr. Jawharhi stated. “People have gathered in the area. They are really angry. It is not for the first time that our kids get blown up and the government doesn’t do anything.”
It has been a very violent week in Afghanistan. The Taliban have began offensives in the south and north following the beginning of the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops. Last week, a automotive bomb in Logar, a province simply south of Kabul, killed greater than 20 individuals.
But Saturday’s assault occurred in a predominantly Shiite a part of Kabul, the place the Islamic State has launched assaults earlier than on the Hazara inhabitants, an ethnic minority. In October, a suicide blast at an schooling heart in the identical neighborhood as Saturday’s assault killed at least 24 individuals, once more a lot of them college students.
Islamic State ways have usually mimicked these launched by the Taliban, particularly the Haqqani community, a bunch recognized for its ruthlessness, legal networks and shut ties to Al Qaeda.
At least 44 civilians and 139 authorities forces had been killed in Afghanistan in the previous week, the best dying toll in a single week since October, according to data gathered by The New York Times.
Fatima Faizi and Kiana Hayeri contributed reporting.
