At Least 7 Killed in Blast in North Afghanistan

Taliban security personnel carry a damaged bus after a roadside bomb blast in Mazar-e Sharif, the capital city of Balkh province, in northern Afghanistan, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2022. (AP)
Taliban security personnel carry a damaged bus after a roadside bomb blast in Mazar-e Sharif, the capital city of Balkh province, in northern Afghanistan, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2022. (AP)
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At Least 7 Killed in Blast in North Afghanistan

Taliban security personnel carry a damaged bus after a roadside bomb blast in Mazar-e Sharif, the capital city of Balkh province, in northern Afghanistan, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2022. (AP)
Taliban security personnel carry a damaged bus after a roadside bomb blast in Mazar-e Sharif, the capital city of Balkh province, in northern Afghanistan, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2022. (AP)

At least seven people were killed on Tuesday when a blast hit a vehicle carrying oil workers in northern Afghanistan, police said. 

"Today at around 7 a.m. a blast took place in ... Balkh on a bus which belonged to Hairatan oil employees," said Mohammad Asif Wazeri, police spokesperson for northern province of Balkh, adding that at least six people were wounded. 

The cause of the blast was not immediately clear. Wazeri said police were investigating and searching for a culprit. 

Balkh province is home to one of Afghanistan's main dry ports in the town of Hairatan, near the border with Uzbekistan, which has rail and road links to Central Asia. 

It was not clear who the employees on the bus worked for. 



UK Warns of Iranian Attempts to Bring Ships into its Waters

Illustrative: The oil tanker Mercer Street, which came under attack last week off Oman, is seen moored off Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2021 (AP)
Illustrative: The oil tanker Mercer Street, which came under attack last week off Oman, is seen moored off Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2021 (AP)
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UK Warns of Iranian Attempts to Bring Ships into its Waters

Illustrative: The oil tanker Mercer Street, which came under attack last week off Oman, is seen moored off Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2021 (AP)
Illustrative: The oil tanker Mercer Street, which came under attack last week off Oman, is seen moored off Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2021 (AP)

A warning has gone out to seafarers in the Arabian Gulf over what appear to be attempts by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to compel ships to enter Iranian waters.

A notice from the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center on Friday said that there had been “several incidents involving VHF radio challenges to vessels.”

“It is assessed that these are most likely part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ large-scale exercise, Great Prophet XVIII,” the UKMTO said.

Iran has been engaged in an extraordinary two-month-long military exercise across the country after being twice hit by Israel in retaliation for attacks against it during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

While Iran has a history of harassing and impounding vessels, it hasn’t directly launched many such attacks recently. Instead, the Iran-backed Houthi group have been attacking ships since November 2023, a campaign that now appears to be winding down after the ceasefire in Gaza.

Iranian media reported a likely Guard exercise in the Arabian Gulf coming this weekend as well.