ISIS claims Afghanistan bus attack that killed nine people

ISIS claimed the two bomb attacks on minibuses in Afghanistan's Mazar-i-Sharif that killed nine people on Thursday.

The attacks came within minutes of each other in two areas of Mazar-i-Sharif as commuters headed home to end the day's fast, Balkh provincial police spokesman Asif Waziri told AFP.

The country has suffered a sharp increase in deadly attacks over the past two weeks after a string of bombings during Ramadan, the month of fasting.

“The targets appear to be Shiite passengers,” he said. Thirteen people were wounded in the blasts.

The so-called Islamic State – Khorasan Province (IS-K) took responsibility for Thursday's attack, claiming that 30 people were killed.

The number of violent public attacks in Afghanistan has fallen since the Taliban took over the country in August although ISIS has continued to target Shiites, whom they view as heretics.

Images on social media showed one minibus engulfed in flames, while the other was mangled, with Taliban fighters transporting victims to hospitals.

Last week, an attack on a Shiite mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif killed at least 12 worshippers and wounded many more.

That explosion was followed a day later by the bombing of another mosque in Kunduz targeting the minority Sufi community where at least 36 people were killed during Friday prayers.

In Kabul, another attack also targeted Shiites, with two bombs detonated at a school, killing six pupils.

ISIS claimed the mosque attack in Mazar-i-Sharif, but no group has so far taken responsibility for the bombing in Kunduz or at the Kabul school.

Shiite Afghans, who are mostly from the Hazara community, make up between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of Afghanistan's population of 38 million.

Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP on Thursday that several arrests had been made in connection with the string of recent attacks.

“These attacks targeted places that did not have enough security, like mosques and a school, but now we have stepped up security in such places,” he said.