The Daesh (ISIL) Group Claimed Responsibility for a Blast in Afghanistan

Source: Al-Jazeera

 

The Sunni Muslim group said on Telegram that it used a parcel bomb to target a sports club in Kabul.

The Daesh (ISIL) militant group has claimed responsibility for an explosion at a sports club in the Afghan capital that killed four people.

The hard-line Sunni Muslim group said on its Telegram channel on Friday that it had used a parcel bomb that ISIS fighters had placed "in a room where [Shiite Muslims] gather".

According to police, the blast occurred Thursday evening at a commercial center in Kabul's Dasht Barchi neighborhood, an enclave of the historically oppressed Shiite Hazara community.

Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said in a message to reporters on Friday afternoon that police were still investigating the cause of the explosion.

He added that seven people were injured in the blast, initially two were killed and nine were injured.

Taliban officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

AFP news agency journalists witnessed on Friday that the blast tore through a sports club and reached several floors into the shopping center, shattering glass and shattering windows on all sides of the venue and damaging the entire block. reached.

An instructor at the club, who trains in combat sports, told AFP that the blast happened at the end of a busy boxing session that usually had about 30 people.

"The explosion was unusually loud. Walls collapsed, metal doors, glass and windows were broken," said Sultan Ali Amiri, 26, who was not in the club at the time of the blast. "There is a lot of damage, Punching bags and almost everything is destroyed”.

AFP reporters saw several heavy bags used for combat sports training on the floor of the club, others still hanging and filled with explosive fragments.

Afghanistan's Hazara community faces regular attacks in the Sunni Muslim-majority country.

They have been persecuted for decades, targeted by the Taliban during their insurgency against the former US-backed government as well as ISIS.

The Daesh group, which views Shia Muslims as heretics, has carried out several deadly attacks targeting schools, mosques and mosques in the same area in recent years.

Photos shared on social media shortly after the blast showed the sports club engulfed in flames and boxing mitts amid broken glass on the ground.

The number of bombings and suicide attacks has dropped dramatically since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, ousting the US-backed government.

However, several armed groups – including regional chapters of ISIS – continue to attack.

(Courtesy: Al-Jazeera)