ISIS Claims Responsibility for Deadly Explosion in Afghanistan

Afghan athletes and police personnel inspect the Mellat boxing club, a day after an explosion took place at the site in the Dashti Barchi neighborhood of Kabul on October 27, 2023. (Photo by Wakil KOHSAR / AFP)

ISIS claimed responsibility for an explosion in a Shiite neighborhood in Afghanistan’s capital that killed at least four people.
Seven others were critically wounded in the attack Thursday evening, according to Khalid Zadran, a spokesman for the Kabul police chief.
ISIS affiliates claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement late Friday through its news agency Aamaq, saying it “managed to leave a booby-trapped suitcase" inside a gathering place that exploded, killing and wounding about 35 people and inflicting heavy damage on a sports club.
Video taken after the explosion shows part of a building with its windows blown out and a fire inside. Shattered glass and other debris are strewn across the street below.
The scale of the damage was clearer Friday morning. There were craters in the ground and most of the interior was gutted, The Associated Press reported. Workers picked their way through boxing gloves and gym equipment on the blood-splattered floor.
The Dashti Barchi area of Kabul has been repeatedly targeted by the ISIS affiliate in the country, which has carried out major assaults on schools, hospitals and mosques.