KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP), the regional Islamic State affiliate, has claimed responsibility for the explosion in western Kabul that killed at least one person and injured 11, including three women.
The attack occurred on Sunday at around 4 pm targeting a civilian minibus in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood, mainly populated by ethnic Hazaras.
ISKP took credit for the attack via its news outlet on Sunday night.
The blast was triggered by an improvised explosive device (IED) that went off in the vehicle, said Khalid Zadran, the Taliban spokesperson for Kabul police command.
At least eight of the victims were shifted to Kabul’s Emergency Hospital, one of whom remains in critical condition, the hospital said in a post on X.
Members of the Hazara community have been targeted for years by Sunni extremist groups, including the Taliban, who now hold power in the country. In recent years, the Dasht-e-Barchi area has come under frequent targeted attacks by ISKP, which labels Shia Hazaras as “heretics”.
ISKP has carried out major, horrific attacks on schools, hospitals, public transportation, mosques, gyms, and other social premises, targeting members of the Hazara community. The group has also attacked other Shia areas of Afghanistan in recent years.
Last November, in the same area of Kabul, IS-KP targeted a minibus which killed seven people and wounded 20 others. A month earlier, the terrorist group carried out two bomb attacks targeting a sports club in the area and a gathering of Shiite clerics in the northern province of Baghlan. The blasts killed six people and seven Shia clerics, respectively.
A Human Rights Watch report showed that at least 700 Hazaras were killed or wounded by ISKP in thirteen separate attacks between August 2021 and September 2022.
The organization also stated that the Taliban’s increasing crackdown on the media, especially in the provinces, means that additional attacks have likely gone unreported.
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 Taliban’s failure to protect vulnerable communities like the Hazaras and provide medical and other assistance to survivors and their families, as well as its policies that violate human rights, especially those of women and girls, worsens the harm caused by these attacks.
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.
Last week, the American Bar Association (ABA), a U.S.-based association of lawyers, adopted a resolution urging governments to “recognize, stop, and prevent” further acts of genocide against the Hazara people in Afghanistan.
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 violent 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.”
