More Than 40 Dead After Explosions In Afghanistan’s Capital

Do not forget to update your bookmarks. The Afghan Voice Agency founded in Mashhad, Iran, two decades ago, has been operating its Kabul office since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001.

The U.N. mission in Afghanistan has documented more than a dozen attacks since January 2016, with hundreds of Shiites dead or wounded.

Local Shiite leader Abdul Hussain Ramazandada said the bomber slipped into an academic seminar at the center and blew himself up among the participants. The other explosions occurred as people fled, he said.

November 21: A massive suicide blast targeting Shiites kills at least 27 people and wounds 64 at a Kabul mosque.

Attackers then stormed inside and further blasts were heard in the cultural centre’s basement, the interior ministry suggested.

Deputy Health Minister Feda Mohammad Paikan said 35 bodies had been brought to the nearby Istiqlal hospital. Eighty-four were wounded, with most suffering from burns. The Iran-backed news outlet, Afghan Voice Agancy, reports that one of their journalists was killed and that their headquarters, which are housed in the Tebyan Centre, might have been the target.

On Thursday, the centre was marking the anniversary of the 1979 Soviet invasion with a seminar about the event’s impact on the country.

December 28 is a significant day in Afghanistan.

The Afghan branch of the Islamic State group, made up of Sunni extremists, sees Shiites as apostates. Since they emerged two years ago in Afghanistan, they have relentlessly targeted Shiites.

Forty-one people including a journalist were killed in a suicide attack in the Pul-i-Sokhta neighbourhood of Kabul on Thursday morning, officials said. The branch of the IS group in Afghanistan Uzbek militants from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, who separated from the Taliban, and disillusioned insurgents who have abandoned the largest and most established Taliban force.

The attacks have increased pressure on Mr Ghani’s Western-backed government to improve security.

Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan president, called the attack a “crime against humanity”.

“We remain determined in our resolve to help the Afghan people overcome terror and we are committed to supporting the Afghan government in seeking a brighter future for its people”.

Also last month, Gen. John Nicholson, the top US commander in Afghanistan, said USA and Afghan special operations forces would soon “take the fight” to ISIS-K fighters who had established a foothold in the country’s northwest.