Blast at sports club in Afghanistan claims 4 lives, injures 7
Kabul, Oct 27 (EFE).- An explosion killed four people and injured seven others at a boxing club in a Shiite Muslim neighborhood of the Afghan capital Kabul, police said on Friday.
Police spokesperson Khalid Zadran told Efe the blast occurred late Thursday evening in Dasht-e-Barchi in the west of the capital, mainly targeting athletes from the long-persecuted Hazara ethnic minority.
Footage taken after the incident shows significant damage to the sports hall, with boxing gloves and stacked dumbbells scattered on the blood-stained floor amid the debris.
The exact cause of the explosion remains unknown, and authorities have opened an investigation into the blast.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far, although the neighborhood has frequently been targeted by the local branch of the Islamic State militant group in recent years.
In September 2022, a suicide attack on an educational center in the neighborhood resulted in 43 deaths and 83 injuries, mainly affecting girls and young women.
In May 2021, an attack on a girls’ school in the same area claimed the lives of at least 110 people, leaving another 290 injured.
Since its emergence in Afghanistan in 2015, the Islamic State terror group has waged a brutal campaign against the Shiite minority, mainly targeting their schools, places of worship, weddings, and other gatherings. EFE
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