ISLAMABAD: A Taliban official says at least 10 students were killed Wednesday when a bomb blast hit a religious school in northern Afghanistan.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Nafi Takor says several others were wounded in the blast at the madrassa in Aybak, capital of the northern Samangan province.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But the Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State group has been waging a campaign of violence that escalated since the Taliban took power in August 2021.

IS has carried out bombings targeting in particular Afghanistan’s Shiite Muslim minority but has also targeted Sunni mosques and madrassas, especially ones connected to the Taliban. The Taliban and the Islamic State group both adhere to a hard-line ideology but are bitter rivals.

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