Blast hits school in north Afghanistan, killing at least 16
KABUL/QUETTA: At least 16 people were killed and 24 others wounded on Wednesday by a blast at a madrassa in Afghanistan’s northern city of Aybak, a doctor at a local hospital said.
There have been dozens of blasts and attacks targeting civilians since the Taliban returned to power in August last year, most claimed by the local chapter of the Islamic State ( IS) group. A doctor in Aybak, about 200km north of the capital Kabul, said the casualties were mostly youngsters.
“All of them are children and ordinary people,” he told AFP, asking not to be named.
A provincial official confirmed the blast at Al Jihad madrassa, an Islamic religious school, but could not provide casualty figures. The Taliban, which frequently plays down casualty figures, said 10 students had died and “many others” were injured.
“Our detective and security forces are working quickly to identify the perpetrators of this unforgivable crime and punish them for their actions,” tweeted interior ministry spokesman Abdul Nafay Takor.
Images and video circulating on social media -- which could not immediately be verified -showed Taliban fighters picking their way through bodies strewn across the floor of a building.
Suicide bomber attacks Pakistan police, kills four
A Pakistani Taliban suicide bomber rammed a police escort for a polio vaccination team in southwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing four people and wounding more than 30, police said, just two days after the militants ended a ceasefire.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack near the city of Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, in a statement received by Reuters.
Separately, the army said it killed 10 militants in Balochistan on Tuesday, but did not clarify whether they were TTP or Baloch separatist fighters.