Islamabad — The United Nations has urged Afghanistan's ruling Taliban to bring to justice the perpetrators of an overnight deadly minibus bombing in Kabul that targeted members of the minority Hazara-Shiite community.
Saturday's attack in the western Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood of the Afghan capital killed at least five passengers and wounded more than a dozen others, a Taliban police statement said. An earlier statement put the death toll at two.
A regional Islamic State affiliate, known as Islamic State-Khorasan, or IS-K, claimed responsibility, saying it detonated an explosive device on the bus carrying Shiite Muslims, whom the Sunni-based militant outfit condemns as disbelievers.
"At least 25 members of Kabul's Hazara community killed and wounded in last night's explosion in Dasht-e Barchi," the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said Sunday on X, formerly known as Twitter.
"UNAMA calls for an end to targeted attacks on civilians, greater protection for # Afghanistan's Hazara community and accountability for perpetrators," the agency wrote.
Dasht-e-Barchi is a predominantly Shi'ite neighborhood and has experienced persistent militant bomb attacks targeting mosques, schools, and hospitals. IS-K has claimed credit for almost all recent attacks against the Hazara community in the city and elsewhere in Afghanistan, killing hundreds of civilians.
The militant group has also targeted prominent Afghan religious personalities linked to the Taliban since they regained control of the country more than two years ago.
Taliban officials claim their counterterrorism operations led to a 90% decrease in nationwide IS-K attacks in the past year, saying the group is not able to threaten Afghanistan or beyond.
However, the United States says IS-K "remains a viable terrorist threat" to the conflict-torn South Asian nation and the region.
"ISIS-K does remain a viable terrorist threat. Certainly, they are largely based out of Afghanistan. That's where they headquarter themselves," John Kirby, the U.S. National Security Council spokesperson, told reporters on Thursday, using a different acronym for the group.
Kirby was responding to questions about IS-K's strength and its ability to threaten global security after the group claimed credit for twin suicide bombings that killed nearly 100 people in predominantly Shi'ite Iran last Wednesday.
Iranian authorities said after the deadly attack in the southeastern city of Kerman that they were shutting "porous stretches" of the country's long borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan as part of a "comprehensive plan" to increase national security.
Iran's media reported that the plan stemmed from concerns that "illegal immigrants" and "terrorists" from the two neighboring countries had slipped into Iranian territory, posing a security threat.
Islamabad and Kabul have both condemned the bomb attack in Iran, but they have not yet responded to Tehran's terror allegations.
