KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The regional Islamic State affiliate, IS-KP, claimed responsibility for the Saturday explosion in western Kabul, saying it targeted the Hazara-Shia community.
In a statement, IS-KP said that it targeted a vehicle transporting Hazara-Shias with a magnetic bomb near a Taliban checkpoint in the Kot-e-Sangi area of western Kabul. The explosion, the terror group said, killed and injured 10 people.
Local sources in Kabul reported yesterday an explosion in western Kabul, where the majority of the population is Shia Hazaras. The community has been targeted for years by Sunni extremist groups, including the Taliban, who now hold power in the country.
The Taliban also confirmed yesterday’s explosion, saying that it killed one person and injured three others. Local media quoted Khalid Zadran, the group’s spokesman for Kabul police, as saying, “the explosion was caused by a magnetic mine planted on a Mercedes passenger vehicle in Kot-e Sangi in PD3. preliminary information indicates that the driver of the vehicle was killed and three civilians were injured.”
Despite a relative decrease in violence in Afghanistan in recent years, the Hazara community still faces targeted attacks and persecution including in the hands of the ruling authorities.
Since the beginning of 2024, there have been at least three such attacks on Hazaras across Afghanistan, all claimed by IS-KP, which considers Shiites heretics.
Despite the Taliban’s claims that there are no active terrorist groups in Afghanistan and that they have dismantled IS-KP, the terror group continues to expand its operations.
The targeted attacks against the Hazara community in Afghanistan have been widely condemned and have sparked protests around the world. Human rights groups and activists have called these attacks an ongoing genocide, , urging the UN and the international community to recognize them as such.
In his report to the Human Rights Council last year, Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Afghanistan, expressed concerns regarding ongoing human rights violations and the persecution of Shia Hazaras under the Taliban regime.
Mr. Bennett called for a thorough investigation into the targeted attacks on Hazaras and other religious minorities in Afghanistan. He emphasized that these attacks are “becoming increasingly systematic in nature and reflect elements of an organizational policy,” suggesting that they may qualify as “crimes against humanity.”
The UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) also affirmed that it had been able to confirm extrajudicial killings, forced displacement, and destruction of property and arable land of Hazaras in some parts of Afghanistan, particularly in the southern Uruzgan province.
