At least 8 killed in powerful explosion in Afghanistan's Herat
A blast from explosives placed on a motorbike has claimed the lives of at least eight people, including four children, in Afghanistan’s western Herat province, local officials say.
Jilani Farhad, a spokesman for Herat's governor, said that the explosion happened near a mosque in Shindand district on Monday.
Farhad noted that two girls and two boys were among those killed. Nine more children were also injured in the deadly blast, which sent shockwaves through the troubled region.
According to initial information, the blast was caused by explosives placed in a three-wheeler rickshaw controlled from far.
No group or individual has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
In late March, at least two attackers struck a Shia mosque in the western city of Herat, killing at least one person and wounding eight others.
Herat is among the relatively calm provinces in Afghanistan, but militants are active in the region’s several remote districts.
Last month, Daesh claimed responsibility for bomb attacks near Shia Hazara mosques and gatherings in Herat and the capital Kabul that killed dozens of people. The Hazara Shia community, the poorest of the country’s ethnic groups, accounts for about 22 percent of Afghanistan’s population.
As Daesh has completely lost all of its urban strongholds in Iraq and Syria during the past year, it has stepped up its terror attacks in war-ravaged Afghanistan despite the presence of thousands of foreign troops there.
The Takfiri group, taking advantage of the resulting chaos, first appeared in the war-torn country some three years ago. As well as its main stronghold in the eastern province of Nangarhar, on the border with Pakistan, its militants have been active in northern Afghanistan.
According to the UN's annual civilian casualty report, 3,438 people were killed and 7,015 others injured last year in the conflict in Afghanistan.
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