4 killed, including 3 foreign tourists, in Afghanistan shooting: govt

KABUL (AFP): Three foreign tourists and an Afghan were killed on Friday in a shooting in the popular tourism destination of Bamiyan in central Afghanistan, the interior ministry said.

“One Afghan and three foreign nationals were killed,” in gunfire Friday evening in Bamiyan city, interior ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani, told AFP.

Another four foreigners and three Afghans were wounded, he added.

Qani said the “foreigners were here for tourism,” without giving the nationalities of the foreign victims.

According to preliminary information provided by hospital sources, the three foreigners who were killed were Spanish nationals.

The wounded were from Norway, Australia, Lithuania and Spain.

Diplomatic sources said they were seeking to confirm the information, including the identities of the dead.

Security forces have arrested four people in connection with the attack, Qani said.

He did not say if there had been multiple shooters.

The Taliban government “strongly condemns this crime, expresses its deep feelings to the families of the victims and assures that all the criminals will be found and punished,” Qani said in a statement.

A local resident, who did not want to be named, said he “heard the sounds of successive gunshots, and the city streets leading to the site were blocked immediately by the security forces.”

Bamiyan, home to the giant Buddhas blown up by the Taliban in 2001, is Afghanistan’s top tourist destination.

Deadly attacks on foreigners have been rare in Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.

Tourists have been traveling to the country in increasing numbers in recent years as security has improved since the Taliban ended their insurgency after ousting the US-backed government.

Arriving in western Herat province Friday evening, a foreign tourist posted on a WhatsApp group for travelers in Afghanistan that he and others were stopped by the Taliban authorities and told “that because of Bamiyan we were no longer safe.”

“After some time and Google translate, we convinced them to let us go, they said go eat quickly and get off the streets,” the tourist said.

The Bamiyan region is majority inhabited by members of the Hazara Shiite community.

The historically persecuted religious minority has been repeatedly targeted by the Daesh group, which considers them heretics.

The number of bombings and suicide attacks in Afghanistan has reduced dramatically since the Taliban authorities took power.

However, a number of armed groups, including IS, remain a threat.