The death of a security agent and injuries to five journalists and three Afghan children is the provisional balance of an explosion that occurred in Maraz-i-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan, indicated a police source.
The explosion took place during a ceremony to celebrate the National Journalist’s Day, and the artifact exploded after an intervention by a senior Taliban official and a choir of children began to sing the Afghan national anthem.
“When the explosion occurred, there was chaos. Everyone was trying to find a way to escape, afraid the building would collapse,” Afghan journalist Atif Arian told the France-Presse (AFP) news agency, who was injured in one ear, adding that some of his colleagues were “severely injured”.
The event was organized by a cultural center to mark the National Journalist’s Day.
Afghan journalists were regular targets of the Islamic State (IS) group even before the Taliban took power in August 2021.
This Saturday’s explosion comes two days after the assassination, in the same city, of the governor of Balkh province, of which Mazar-i-Sharif is the capital.
Mohammad Dawood Muzammil was killed Thursday in a suicide attack carried out by a fighter from the IS group, who managed to enter the governor’s office before blowing himself up, an attack that was claimed by the movement through a statement released in its own propaganda organ Amaq .
Mohammad Dawood Muzammil is one of the most important Taliban leaders to be assassinated since the movement returned to power in Kabul in August 2021.
The Taliban’s return to power ended two decades of war against North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and US forces, leading to a significant reduction in violence in the country.
However, since last year, the IS group has become the biggest security challenge for the Taliban Government.
Both groups share an austere Sunni Islamic ideology, but the IS group strives to establish a global “caliphate”, while the Taliban want to rule a
