Militants gun down 13 Shia Muslims in Afghanistan
A group of heavily-armed militants have shot dead more than a dozen Shia Muslims belonging to the Hazara ethnic group in the troubled northern Afghanistan, local officials say.
Munir Farhad, the Balkh governor's spokesman, said the gunmen dragged 13 Hazara passengers out of two vehicles and shot them to death in Zari District of the troubled province of Balkh.
"The incident occurred Saturday morning in Zari District of Balkh Province," media outlets quoted Farhad as saying.
Jafar Haidari, the governor of Zari, said the gunmen, dressed in uniforms of Afghan security forces, stopped the vehicles while traveling on a road from Zari.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. However, Afghan officials have in the past held the Taliban militant group or, more recently, gunmen affiliated with the Daesh Takfiri terrorists accountable for similar incidents.
In late February, a group of masked gunmen abducted 30 Shia Muslim men traveling by bus through central Afghanistan’s Zabul Province. They were kidnapped on the road between the western city of Herat and the capital, Kabul.
Hazara Shia Muslims have often been targeted by militant groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In mid April, terrorists decapitated five Muslims of the same community in the southeastern Afghan province of Ghazni.
The Hazara Shia Muslim community makes up about 22 percent of Afghanistan's population.
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