IS fighters involved in Afghanistan classroom attack killed: Taliban

KABUL: Taliban forces have killed six fighters from the Islamic State group who were involved in a suicide bombing on an Afghan educational centre that killed dozens of female students, an official said Saturday.

On September 30, a suicide bomber blew himself up next to women at a gender-segregated study hall in Kabul packed with hundreds of students sitting a practice test for university admissions.

At least 53 people, including 46 girls and young women, were killed in the attack, according to the United Nations.

No group has claimed responsibility for the bombing, but on Saturday the Taliban authorities held the Islamic State (IS) responsible for several recent attacks on civilians, including the one at Kaaj Educational Centre.

Government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Taliban forces conducted an operation in Kabul Friday night in which six IS fighters were killed and two others were captured.

“All the killed IS members were criminals who were involved in recent explosions in Wazir Akbar Khan mosque, Kaaj Educational Centre and some other crimes against civilians,” Mujahid said in a statement on Twitter.

On September 23, at least seven people were killed when a car bomb exploded in front of Wazir Akbar Khan mosque near Kabul’s fortified former Green Zone, which housed several embassies before the Taliban seized power last August.

That attack has also not yet been claimed by any group.

While overall violence has significantly dropped across Afghanistan since the war ended with the Taliban’s return to power, there have been regular bomb attacks in Kabul and other cities.

Several of these attacks have been claimed by IS, and the group has previously carried out deadly assaults in the capital’s Dasht-e-Barchi area, where the educational centre is located.

The district is home to the Shiite Hazara community, a regular target of IS, which considers them heretics.

Taliban officials claim the IS has been defeated in Afghanistan, but experts say the group is the main security challenge for the country’s current rulers.