Blasts at Schools in Shiite Area of Kabul Kill at Least 6

Several explosions outside an education center and a public high school in Afghanistan’s capital on Tuesday killed at least six people and wounded at least a dozen more, many of them students, including one as young as 7.

The attacks, whose final casualty figures could be much higher based on reports from the area hospitals treating the victims, were a gruesome reminder of the dangers that persist in Afghanistan despite the Taliban’s promise to establish security across the country after 20 years of war.

The number of attacks in the country has significantly declined since the Taliban ousted the US-backed Afghan government in August, but the militant Islamic State group has claimed several attacks since then.

Several bodies were strewn outside the gate of a school in the densely populated Shiite Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood in Kabul, alongside patches of blood, burnt books and school bags, according to images posted on social media.

"We were leaving school and had just stepped out from the rear gate when the explosion occurred," Ali Jan, a student who was wounded in the first blast, told AFP at a hospital in the area where the blasts occurred.

The second blast took place as rescuers arrived to ferry victims from the first explosion to hospitals.

"Some of our friends have lost hands, while some were covered in blood," said Saeed Rahmatullah Haidari, a student at the school.

"There were pieces of broken glass and pools of blood... my whole body was shaking." Outside a hospital treating the wounded, Taliban fighters beat back the families of students who had gathered searching for information.

Women cried out as they scanned through pictures of victims posted on nearby walls by medics.

Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran told AFP that the attack outside the Abdul Rahim Shahid school was caused by two improvised explosive devices, killing six people.

A grenade was also thrown at a nearby English language centre in the same area, wounding one person, he later said.

Two hospitals said they were treating 24 wounded patients.