At least six dead as multiple explosions hit Kabul schools

By Ehsan Popalzai, Nicola Careem and Hannah Ritchie, CNN

At least six people have been killed and 11 others injured after multiple explosions rocked a high school and educational center in western Kabul on Tuesday.

It was not immediately clear how many of the dead were students, but seven injured children were taken to a hospital run by the NGO Emergency, the organization said on Twitter.

“Security forces are at the scene and investigations underway,” Kabul police chief spokesman Khalid Zadran said in a tweet, also giving the death toll.

He added that the Abdul Rahim Shaheed High School was hit with three explosions. The other facility attacked was the Mumtaz Educational Centre.

A spokesperson for the Muhammad Ali Jinnah Hospital in Kabul earlier gave CNN a higher number for those injured.

The blasts occurred in the Dasht-i-Barchi area of the Afghan capital, home to a large Shia Hazara community, a minority group previously targeted by extremists.

There has been no official claim of responsibility for the apparent attack and it is possible the death toll could rise.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) “unequivocally” condemned the “heinous attack” in a statement on Twitter.

“Those responsible for the crime targeting schools & children must be brought to justice,” it said.

The Save the Children charity also expressed outrage and strongly condemned the attack.

In May 2021, a bombing at the Sayed Al-Shuhada girls’ school in the area killed at least 85 people, mostly teenage girls.

The Taliban denied any involvement in that attack and no militant groups claimed responsibility at the time.

On August 30 last year, Taliban forces unlawfully killed 13 ethnic Hazaras in Afghanistan’s Daykundi province, according to an investigation by Amnesty International.

The Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, seized control of the country in August 2021 as the US government withdrew all of its troops from the country.

Since then the country has seen a number of attacks from Taliban rivals including IS Khorasan (ISIS-K), an affiliate of ISIS.

ISIS-K claimed responsibility for a suicide attack at Kabul airport in August last year which killed more than 170 people, as well as a spate of attacks in the eastern city of Jalalabad in September.

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CNN’s Mostafa Salem contributed to this report.