Gunmen kill 14 in a Shiite area of Afghanistan in one of the deadliest attacks this year
Gunmen killed 14 people in a Shiite-majority area in central Afghanistan, the Taliban said Friday, in one of the deadliest attacks in the country this year.
Gunmen killed 14 people in a Shiite-majority area in central Afghanistan, the Taliban said Friday, in one of the deadliest attacks in the country this year. Six other people were wounded in the assault.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility before the Taliban acknowledged the shootings, which took place Thursday and targeted Hazara Shiite people as they traveled between the provinces of Ghor and Daikundi.
A machine gun was used in the assault, the ISIS group said. It gave a higher death toll than the Taliban.
The Iranian news agency IRNA quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani as saying the group had targeted people welcoming Afghan Shiites who were returning from visiting shrines in Iraq. He called for immediate action to punish those behind the crime.
The ISIS group’s affiliate in the country, a major rival to the Taliban, has challenged authorities’ grip on domestic security by attacking schools, hospitals, mosques and Shiite areas in the past three years.
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