Eight martyred as twin blasts hit buses in Kabul's Shia Muslim Hazara neighborhoods
Two separate bomb blasts have ripped through minibuses near a Shia Muslim Hazara neighborhood in the Afghan capital Kabul, martyring at least eight people and injuring nine others, police sources say.
According to reports, police spokesman Ferdaws Faramarz said on Thursday the first explosion happened on a road in southwestern Kabul near a neighborhood largely populated by the Shia Muslim Hazara community, which has been the frequent target of terrorist attacks.
Four people were martyred in the blast, and four others wounded.
The rest of the casualties were caused hours later after a second bus was hit just a few kilometers away, also in a Hazara neighborhood, Faramarz said.
Earlier this week, the Daesh terrorist group claimed back-to-back attacks on two buses in Kabul that killed at least 10 people.
No group or individual has so far claimed responsibility for the latest attacks, which follow a dangerous pattern of similar attacks in recent months on the persecuted Hazara community in Afghanistan, and neighboring Pakistan.
On May 8, at least 68 people, mostly schoolgirls were martyred in explosions caused by a car bomb and mortar shells targeting a school in the Shia Muslim majority neighborhood of Dasht-e-Barchi in western Kabul.
The Hazara community on both sides of the border has suffered decades of persecution and attacks by violent militant groups operating across the troubled region.
The Thursday attack was the latest in a series of violent attacks across Afghanistan, which have seen a sharp rise since the US missed a withdrawal deadline it had agreed with the Taliban in Doha last year.
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