World

Kabul suicide bomber kills 48 in tuition centre attack

August 15, 2018 4:01 pm

Forty-eight people have been killed and 67 injured in a bomb explosion at an education centre in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, officials say.

Police say a suicide bomber walked into the centre while teaching was under way and detonated his bomb belt.

Many of those killed were teenagers who were getting extra tuition as they prepared for university entrance exams.

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In the northern province of Baghlan, an attack killed at least nine policemen and 35 soldiers, officials say.

Taliban militants denied involvement in the Kabul attack, in a mostly Shia Muslim area.

The Shia community in Afghanistan has been repeatedly targeted by Sunni Muslim extremists of the Islamic State group, which views the Shia practice of Islam as heretical.

On the same day, the Taliban said it could no longer guarantee safe passage for Red Cross staff working in Afghanistan, amid a row over the treatment of Taliban prisoners in a jail in Kabul.