At least 10 people have been killed in a bomb blast at a religious school in northern Afghanistan, the Taliban said.
An interior ministry spokesman told the BBC that the blast had taken place in Aibak, in Samangan province, injuring more people.
But the death toll is still unknown, with two state officials telling the BBC that 17 people were killed in the blast.
No group has taken responsibility for this attack.
The blast was said to have occurred after people had finished a mass prayer, and doctors at a local hospital said most of the victims were elementary school students.
“They are all children and normal people,” the doctor said, citing AFP.
Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Nafi Takkur said Taliban security forces were investigating the attack and vowed to “identify the perpetrators and punish their actions.”
Aibak, located 200 km north of the capital Kabul, is a historical city that prospered as a center of trade and as a center of Buddhism in the 4th and 5th centuries.
Afghanistan has suffered dozens of explosions since the Taliban took power last year, most of them claimed by the local branch of the Islamic State, known as the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS‑K). is.
The group is the most radical of Afghanistan’s extremist groups and targets religious minorities such as the Hazaras, whom the Taliban have pledged to protect. However, Human Rights Watch recently noted that “Taliban authorities have done little to protect these communities from suicide bombings and other unlawful attacks.”
In September, a suicide bombing in the capital Kabul killed at least 54 people, including 51 girls and young women. It was aimed at venues where hundreds of students were taking university entrance exams.
Taliban leaders later blamed ISIS‑K, but ISIS‑K itself did not take responsibility.
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