At least 6 killed, 13 wounded in two separate bombings in Afghanistan

(Update 1: adds info about second attack, changes headline, lede)

Kabul, Dec 6 (EFE).- At least 6 people died and 13 others were wounded in two separate bombings in Afghanistan on Tuesday, officials said.

At least six people died and another six were injured in the north of Afghanistan in an attack with explosives against a vehicle carrying petroleum department officials.

“Today morning, an explosion took place in Mazar-i-Sharif city which left six dead and seven wounded. The blast was due to explosives placed in a car that detonated in the passage of a vehicle, in which the department’s workers were traveling,” Mohammad Asif Waziri, a police spokesperson for the Balkh province, told EFE.

The second attack occurred around 2pm local time at a currency exchange market in the city of Jalalabad, capital of the eastern Nangarhar province, in which six people were wounded, provincial police spokesperson Hafiz Abdul Basir told EFE.

The injured were quickly taken to the regional hospital and are out of danger, according to Basir, who added that an investigation had been launched into the incident.

So far, no insurgent group has claimed either attack although the Islamic State (IS) terror group has claimed responsibility for several attacks in urban areas in Afghanistan in the past year.

Since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, the Islamic State-Khorasan province, the Afghan arm of the terror group, has emerged as the main threat to the country’s stability, even though the government denies that the IS poses a significant security threat.

The IS claimed an assassination attempt on Pakistan’s diplomat in Afghanistan and his guards in the Kabul embassy’s courtyard on Dec. 2, in which a security guard was killed.

Under pressure from Islamabad, the Taliban government on Monday announced the arrest of the alleged perpetrator, an IS member.

The IS has also been held culpable for several attacks against the members of the Hazara Shia community, apart from explosions and suicide bombings in mosques, schools as well as diplomatic and high-security areas.

In September, at least 53 people, including 46 girls and young women students, were killed and 110 injured in a suicide bombing against an educational center situated in a district of the discriminated Hazara community in Kabul.

The Taliban have launched operations in several areas of the country in an attempt to rout out the terrorists and fulfill the promise of a secure environment that they had made during the war, before coming to power, when they claimed that their areas under their control were free of terrorism and crime. EFE

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