Deadly blasts hit Afghan capital Kabul

At least two people have been killed and four others injured in two separate bomb explosions in the Afghan capital Kabul, according to the Taliban government.

“Two civilians have been killed and three others were wounded” when a bomb exploded on Friday on a minibus in the Dasht-e-Barchi district of Kabul, the Taliban’s interior ministry spokesman Sayed Khosti told reporters.

Khosti added that a woman was wounded in another explosion in the same area.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks.

Dasht-e-Barchi is largely populated by the mostly Shia Hazara community, which for years has been the target of violence by the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K), an affiliate of the ISIL (ISIS) armed group.

In November, a similar bomb attack on a minibus in Dasht-e-Barchi killed two people and wounded five others. That attack was claimed by the ISKP.

The ISKP claimed an October suicide attack on a Shia mosque in Kandahar in which at least 60 people were killed and scores others injured.

That attack came a week after another deadly mosque blast claimed by the group in northern Kunduz province killed more than 60 people.

The Taliban has promised to crack down on the armed group, attacking their hideouts, especially in the country’s south and east.

Friday’s bus blast is the first fatal attack in several weeks.

The Taliban returned to power in August, 20 years after it was toppled in a US-led military invasion in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The West-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani collapsed during the final stages of the withdrawal of US troops in August.