https://arab.news/ms9jv
- The successive bombings killed at least six people including students in the Afghan capital
- Islamabad says Afghanistan and international community need to engage in close cooperation
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday strongly condemned “terrorist attacks” targeting educational institutions in Kabul, its foreign office said, which killed at least six people, including students, and injured nearly 20 others.
The explosions occurred inside the Abdul Rahim Shaheed High School and near the Mumtaz Education Center in Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood of the Afghan capital. There were no immediate reports of casualties at the Mumtaz Center.
The blasts, which occurred in rapid succession, were being investigated and more casualties were feared, according to Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran and the city’s Emergency Hospital. Several of the wounded were in serious condition, while some had been treated and released.
Zadran said a third blast had occurred at an English-language center in the same area, but did not specify whether it was caused by an explosive.
“Pakistan strongly condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. We stand with our Afghan brothers in this moment of sorrow,” the Pakistani foreign office said in a statement.
It said the government and the people of Pakistan extended sympathies to the families of those who lost their lives and prayed for the early recovery of the injured.
“It is important that Afghanistan and the international community engage in close cooperation against the scourge of terrorism,” the foreign office added.
The Daesh affiliate, known as Daesh in Khorasan province or IS-K, has previously targeted schools particularly in the Shiite-dominated Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood.
In May last year, months before the Taliban took power in Kabul more than 60 children, mostly girls, were killed when two bombs were detonated outside their school, also in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood.
IS has presented the biggest security challenge to the country’s Taliban rulers, who swept into Kabul last August as the United States ended its 20-year war.