Blasts Rock Afghan Capital, Several Casualties Reported

By Staff, Agencies

Three bombs rattled the Afghan capital city of Kabul, claiming the lives of at least 10 people and plunging the city into darkness, an Afghan government spokesman said.

Two bombs exploded in quick succession in separate locations of a west Kabul neighborhood late on Tuesday, killing at least 10 people and wounding a dozen others, said deputy Interior Ministry spokesman Said Hamid Rushan.

A third bomb heavily damaged an electric grid station in north Kabul, said Sangar Niazai, a spokesman for the government power supply department.

The initial two bombings, both targeting minivans, happened in a mostly ethnic Hazara area of the capital, said Rushan.

The first exploded near the home of a prominent Hazara leader, Mohammad Mohaqiq, and in front of a Shia mosque. Most Hazaras are Shia Muslims. The second bomb also targeted a minivan but Rushan said details were still being gathered.

Police cordoned off the two areas and investigators were sifting through the rubble.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombings. The Daesh [Arabic acronym for terrorist ‘ISIS/ISIL’ group] affiliate operating in Afghanistan has previously declared war on minority Shia Muslims, who make up roughly 20 percent of the majority Sunni Muslim nation of 36 million people.

The Daesh affiliate previously claimed responsibility for several attacks in May on Afghanistan’s power supply stations in Kabul and in several other provinces.

On May 8, a car bomb and two roadside bombs exploded outside the Syed-al-Shahada girls school, also in a predominantly Hazara neighborhood, killing nearly 90 people, many of them students.