Afghanistan: One dead, 4 injured in blast in Shiite district of Kabul

An Afghan journalist was killed and four others were injured when a minibus exploded near a Taliban checkpoint in Kabul today, according to sources close to the victim and a local hospital.

The report took place west of Kabul in the Shiite minority district of Hazara, Dast-e-Barsi, at around 15:00 Greek time. Photos showing a large flame coming out of a charred vehicle and black smoke quickly circulated on social media.

“Unfortunately, we lost another journalist,” the Afghan Journalists’ Center wrote on Twitter, explaining that Hamid Seigani, a journalist with the private Ariana TV network, was killed in the blast.

“I lost Hamid,” his wife, also a journalist, wrote on Facebook.

The bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a Taliban checkpoint, an eyewitness said. “I was in my car and there was an explosion in the vehicle in front of us,” he said. Then fire was heard.

The local hospital said it had received one dead and four injured.

A spokesman for the Taliban government, Zabihullah Mujahid, wrote in a tweet that one person was killed and two were injured.

So far no organization has claimed responsibility for the attack.

In early May, the Kabul Dast-e-Barsi district was hit by a bloody attack. A series of explosions took place in front of a school complex for girls.

At least 85 people, most of them high school students, were killed and more than 300 were injured. A car bomb had exploded at an Iraqi police recruiting center at Kisak, killing at least two people. There are strong suspicions that the Islamic State jihadist organization was behind the attack.

Since seizing power on August 15, the Taliban, who have made restoring security in the country a priority after decades of war, have faced a wave of bloody attacks by Islamic State.

Its local branch, the Islamic State of Khorasan (IS-K), a rival and main adversary of the ruling Islamist movement, has targeted both the Taliban and the Afghan Shiite minority in recent weeks.

Kabul National Military Hospital was targeted by IS-K attack, which killed at least 19 people and injured more than 50.

A bomb blast near the eastern city of Jalalabad has killed at least three people and injured 15 others, according to a local hospital doctor.

Source: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ