Terror Attacks on Afghanistan’s Students
Afghanistan’s educational facilities have been facing terror attacks over the past two weeks, killing a total of almost 4 dozen people in the two attacks from Saturday, October 24th and Monday, November 2nd, 2020. Both attacks were targeted within the bounds of the capital city of Kabul in the Central/South Asian country.
On Saturday, October 24th, 2020, a suicide bomb attack killed 24 people and wounded hundreds outside an educational center in Kabul, Afghanistan. The private center building is located in an area of the city that is predominantly Shia Musim Dasht-e-Barchi and is known to host hundreds of students for higher education courses.
After the attack, the Islamic State (ISIS) group took responsibility for it via their social media presence and did so without presentation of any proof. Reporting of the incident also says that before detonating the explosive vest, the ISIS member pronounced a derogatory term against the Shia Muslim community. Unfortunately, this would not be the first time that the Sunni Muslim community has targeted the Shia community in Afghanistan, and it wasn’t the first or last time that an educatuional facility was targeted for a terror attack.
Exactly 9 days after the first attack, another took place inside the Kabul University killing 22 and wounding another 22 people. Three gunmen were reported to have opened fire in classrooms and were shot dead by security forces almost 6 hours after the attack was initiated.
Taliban have denied involvement in both attacks from Oct 24th and Nov 2nd, and like the earlier attack, IS has again come forward to take responsibility for the recent attack on the university. The university was in the midst of hosting a book fair in the presence of the Iranian ambassador when IS decided to open fire and throw grenades over the crowd, claiming later in their online message that they did so in a way to target the recently graduated “judges and investigators belonging to the apostate Afghan government”.
Stefano Pontecorvo, the NATO Senior Civilian Representative to Afghanistan gave a statement saying, “This is the second attack on educational institutions in Kabul… Afghan children and youth need to feel safe going to school.”
The team at Media Quotient Inc. sends our prayers for the students and people who tragically lost their lives in the deadly terror attacks over the past two weeks.
Credit: Google Maps
