55 dead, 150 injured in bombing near Kabul school 

KABUL (Pajhwok): Fifty-five people have been killed and 150 others, mostly girl students, wounded in a series of explosions outside a girls’ school in Kabul.

One security official, requesting not to be named, told Pajhwok Afghan News after the back-to-back blasts that the number of fatalities could rise as many of the injured were in critical condition.

He said mostly girl students streaming out of the Syedul Shuhada High School in the Shia-inhabited Dasht-i-Barchi neighbourhood of Kabul were among the casualties.

However, Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian put the toll from Saturday’s explosions, triggered by a car bombing, at 30 dead and 52 wounded.

He said ambulances evacuated the injured from the attack site to different hospitals in the capital. He would not Say what caused the blasts.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blasts, two of them suicide bombings, but President Ashraf Ghani blamed the assault on the Taliban.

On the other hand, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied the movement’s involvement. He held Daesh responsible for the bombing.

Public Health Ministry spokesman Ghulam Dastagir Nazari said 46 people had been evacuated to different Kabul hospitals so far.

In recent years, the neighbourhood has witnessed a string of high-casualty attacks by the Islamic State militant group, locally known as Daesh.

In the same area, a hospital was stormed by a group of gunmen in May 2020. At least 25 people killed, including 16 mothers of newborn babies, in the assault on the MSF-supported facility.

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