A woman arrives on a motorbike to search for a relative at a hospital in Kabul
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)A suicide attack in Kabul has killed at least 19 people and injured many others, local police have said.
The blast hit the Kaaj education centre in the Dasht-e-Barchi area in the city’s west while students were sitting a mock exam.
Afghan television showed rows of bodies laid out on the floor in a nearby hospital, while other media showed rubble in the college and damaged classrooms.
Under the Taliban rule, most state schools have stopped offering education to girls but the Kaaj, as an independent tuition centre, has continued. Female education can be shunned or forbidden in countries practising strict Islamic law interpretations.
Local reports said many in the education centre were of the Hazara ethnic minority, a group which has been targeted in the past, although no organisation has claimed responsibility.
The Taliban adhere to Sunni Islam rules which has brought them into disagreement with the Hazaras, who practice the Shia strand which is less common in Afghanistan. This has also put the community at risk from Islamic State terrorism, with attacks continuing.
However, the Taliban has condemned the attack with interior ministry spokesman Abdul Nafy Takor claiming it "proves the enemy's inhuman cruelty and lack of moral standards”.
Last year, before the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, a girls school in Dasht-e-Barchi was hit by a bomb attack which killed 85 people.
