Blasts Near Kabul Schools Kill at Least 6 Civilians, Hurt 11

Medical staff move a wounded youth on a stretcher inside a hospital, Kabul, Afghanistan, April 19, 2022. (AFP)
Medical staff move a wounded youth on a stretcher inside a hospital, Kabul, Afghanistan, April 19, 2022. (AFP)
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Blasts Near Kabul Schools Kill at Least 6 Civilians, Hurt 11

Medical staff move a wounded youth on a stretcher inside a hospital, Kabul, Afghanistan, April 19, 2022. (AFP)
Medical staff move a wounded youth on a stretcher inside a hospital, Kabul, Afghanistan, April 19, 2022. (AFP)

Explosions targeting educational institutions killed at least six people, including students, and injured 11 Tuesday in a mostly Shiite neighborhood of Afghanistan's capital city, police said.

The blasts, which occurred in rapid succession, were being investigated and more casualties were feared, according to Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran and the city's Emergency Hospital. Several of the wounded were in critical condition.

The explosions occurred inside the Abdul Rahim Shaheed High School and near the Mumtaz Education Center several kilometers (miles) away, both in the predominately Shiite neighborhood of Dasht-e-Barchi. There were no immediate reports of casualties at the Mumtaz Center.

Guards in the narrow street leading to the two-story high school said they saw 10 casualties. Inside the school, an Associated Press video journalist saw walls splattered with blood, burned notebooks and children's shoes.

The AP spoke to several private guards in the area but they refused to give their names, fearing repercussions from the Taliban security force cordoning off the area.

It appeared a suicide bomber blew himself up inside the sprawling compound, which can house up to 1,000 students, witnesses said. It wasn't immediately clear how many children were in the school at the time of the explosion.

The school is teaching students only until the sixth grade after Afghanistan's hardline Taliban rulers went back on a promise to allow all girls to attend school.

No one has immediately claimed responsibility. The area has been targeted in the past by Afghanistan’s deadly ISIS affiliate.



Iran Police Commander Dismissed After Death in Custody

A view of the entrance to Evin prison in Tehran, Iran (Reuters)
A view of the entrance to Evin prison in Tehran, Iran (Reuters)
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Iran Police Commander Dismissed After Death in Custody

A view of the entrance to Evin prison in Tehran, Iran (Reuters)
A view of the entrance to Evin prison in Tehran, Iran (Reuters)

Iran's police force has dismissed the commander of a city in the northern province of Gilan after the death in custody of a detainee, state media said on Saturday.

Mohammad Mir Mousavi, 36, was arrested on July 22 after being involved in a fight in Lahijan, police said in a statement carried by the official news agency IRNA.

"The police commander... was dismissed due to insufficient oversight of the conduct and behaviour of staff," the police said, AFP reported.

"Due to the complexity of the matter, the final conclusion on the cause of Mohammad Mir Mousavi's death depends on the medical examiner's final report.

The police said the station commander and several officers involved in the incident had been suspended.

"The behaviour of some law enforcement officers was against the professional policy of the police and that is not acceptable in any way, so they were referred to the judicial authority," the statement added.

The Norway-based Kurdish human rights organization, Hengaw, on Wednesday said Mir Mousavi "was killed under torture in the detention center".

On Thursday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered an investigation into the case.

Dismissals of members of the security forces are rare in Iran.

In 2022, the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who had been arrested in Tehran for an alleged breach of the country's strict dress code for women, sparked months of deadly nationwide protests.