One dead and five hurt in blast in capital of Afghanistan's Balkh province

Explosion in Mazar-i-Sharif comes two days after provincial governor was killed there in a bombing claimed by ISIS

Taliban personnel outside the hospital in Mazar-i-Sharif, capital of Afghanistan's Balkh province, after the earlier bombing that killed the provincial governor. AP

One person was killed and five injured — including three children — in an explosion in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Saturday.

This came two days after a blast in the city, the capital of Balkh province, killed the provincial governor. That attack was claimed by ISIS.

“A blast has taken place in the second police district of Balkh,” provincial police spokesman Mohamad Asif Waziri said.

He said the explosion killed one person and injured five others, including three children.

Balkh-based journalist Mohammad Fardin Nowrozi, told Reuters that he and several other journalists were injured in the explosion, but did not provide further details.

The cause of the blast was not immediately clear.

Taliban authorities are investigating the explosion that killed the Taliban provincial governor, Mohammad Dawood Muzamil, and two other people at his office in Mazar-i-Sharif on Thursday.

That attack was claimed by ISIS, which has launched repeated attacks against the Taliban since the hardline group returned to power in 2021.

The governor of Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar will temporarily run Balkh, his spokesman Haji Zaid told Reuters, until Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada selects a new governor for the northern province.

Balkh an important trade hub with Central Asia.

ISIS killed four people, including members of the Taliban, in an attack on a military airfield in Kabul in January, followed by another deadly attack in the capital near the Foreign Ministry.

Four people were also killed in October in a blast at a mosque close to the Interior Ministry in Kabul.

ISIS had previously bombed mosques in Mazar-i Sharif, killing dozens at a Shiite mosque in April last year.

The Taliban also carried out attacks targeting the predominantly Shiite Hazara minority during two decades of insurgency against the western-backed government.