After a gun attack on a group of tourists in Afghanistan left six dead, the Islamic State jihadist militia claimed responsibility for the crime.
On Friday, its fighters “shot Christian tourists and their Shiite companions with machine guns in the mountain town of Bamijan,” the group said on Sunday on the Telegram online service. They attacked a “bus with tourists who are citizens of coalition countries,” it said, referring to the US-led coalition that is fighting IS in the region. The attack was in line with the IS leadership’s instructions to attack nationals of coalition countries, it said.
Three Spaniards and three locals were killed in the attack, and several people from Spain, Lithuania, Norway, Australia and Afghanistan were injured. The tour group was shot at on Friday while shopping at a bazaar in Bamijan, about 180 kilometers from the capital Kabul.
There were once huge Buddha statues in Bamijan, but they were destroyed by the radical Islamic Taliban in 2001. Nevertheless, the city remains one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country.