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24-11-2020
By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report
KABUL/ BAMIYAN/ ISLAMABAD: Dozens more Shia Muslims martyred and injured when two explosions ripped 
through the city of Bamiyan in central Afghanistan, according to officials.
Police Chief of Eponymous province Zabardast Safai said on Tuesday the explosives were hidden at the side of a road in one of the main bazaars in the city, which is home to many members of the mainly Shia Hazara ethnic minority.
The victims included 12 civilians and two traffic police officers.
The other 45 people injured were mostly from a nearby restaurant and shops, Safai said.
According to the interior ministry, the blasts ripped through the marketplace in the evening rush hour.
Spokesman Tariq Arian said two magnetic bombs caused the blasts in a crowded market, calling it an “unforgivable crime”.
The head of the public hospital in Bamiyan, Faroguddin Amiri told media that women and children are among the victims of explosions.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The Taliban, which has been waging a rebellion against the foreign-backed Kabul administration since being toppled in late 2001, denied involvement in the bombings but independent sources claimed that Daesh (ISIS which has turned into ISIL, a new face of Taliban) is involved in twin blasts.
Bamiyan, a famous tourist resort among local and international tourists, was long cherished as one of the relatively safest corners in the otherwise restive country, due to its remote location in the central mountains.
The dominant local tribe, the Hazara, opposed the Taliban, mostly ethnic Pashtuns who massacred thousands of Hazara during their rule.
The mainly Shia minority has often been targeted by groups such as the Daesh/ Taliban/ ISIL (ISIS) affiliate in Afghanistan and also by the Taliban in the 1990s.
In cities such as Kabul, Hazaras have seen repeated attacks in their neighborhoods, including a brutal daylight assault in the capital in May on a hospital maternity ward that left several mothers dead.
Nearly 6,000 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in the first nine months of this year as heavy fighting between government forces and the Taliban rages on despite efforts to find peace, according to the United Nations.
Dozens of nations began pledging billions of dollars in aid for Afghanistan at a conference in Geneva on Tuesday, hoping that peace negotiations recently begun between the government and the Taliban will end nearly two decades of war.
