At least 19 people have died in the western part of the Afghan capital

Taliban authorities said Friday that at least 19 people were killed and 27 others wounded in a suicide attack on an educational center in Kabul, Afghanistan.

The blast occurred as the Kaaj school in Kabul’s 13th district was preparing for entrance exams, city police spokesman Abdul Nafy Takor tweeted. He described the death toll as preliminary.

“Our teams have been dispatched to the site of the explosion to find out more details,” the Taliban-appointed official told the media.

Afghanistan’s TOLO news outlet said the attack occurred around 7:30 am local time. His report describes ambulances taking victims to hospitals.

Footage purportedly filmed at the school, which was shared on social media, showed bloodied bodies covered by sheets and distraught people at the scene.

The facility is in the Dashti Barchi neighborhood of Kabul, where members of the Shiite Hazara minority live, AFP reported. They have been persecuted and attacked for years, including through bomb attacks.

While no group immediately claimed responsibility for the latest attack, the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist organization has launched multiple such attacks in the past.

The Taliban and IS are hostile to each other. Their fighting has been a major cause of violence in Afghanistan since the Taliban regained control of the country last year after a decades-long guerrilla war against a US-backed government in Kabul.

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