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| 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)
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