KABUL (Dispatches) – A bombing at an education center in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul killed 24 people including teenage students and wounded dozens more on Saturday.
A Ministry of Interior spokesman, Tariq Arian, said security guards had identified a bomber who detonated explosives in the street outside the Kawsar-e Danish center.
The attack took place in an area of west Kabul that is home to many from the country’s Shia community.
Most of the victims were students aged between 15 and 26, according to the health ministry. Fifty-seven were injured in the attack, the interior ministry said.
A Taliban spokesman on Twitter denied responsibility for the attack, which came at a sensitive time as teams representing the militants and the government meet in Qatar to seek a peace deal.
Daesh terrorist group claimed responsibility in a statement on Telegram, without providing evidence.
Family members gathered at a nearby hospital, searching for missing loved ones among bags containing the remains of those killed, laid out on the hospital floor, while outside orderlies wheeled injured patients on stretchers for treatment, a Reuters witness said.
Dozens of students died in the same area of Kabul in an attack on another education centre in 2018.
Meanwhile, Afghan security forces have killed Abu Muhsin al-Masri, a senior al Qaeda ringleader.
Al-Masri, believed to be al Qaeda’s second-in-command, was killed during a special operation in Ghazni province.
The al Qaeda operative, who also went by the name Husam Abd-al-Ra’uf, was an Egyptian national.
Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said fewer than 200 al-Qaeda operatives remain in Afghanistan.