At least five petroleum company workers in a bus in northern Afghanistan were killed by a roadside bomb on Tuesday, according to authorities.
According to a spokesperson for the Balkh police department in northern Afghanistan Mohammad Asif Wazeri, “today at around 7 am a blast took place in Balkh on a bus that belonged to Hairatan oil employees,” adding that at least four persons were injured.
Later, he claimed that a bomb was to blame for the explosion. “The bomb was put in a cart at the side of the road. It went off as the bus pulled up.”
One of Afghanistan’s biggest dry ports is located in the Balkh province in the town of Hairatan, which is close to the Uzbek border and has train and road connections to Central Asia.
Although the Taliban assert that they have increased security across the country since seizing control in August of last year, there have been a large number of bombings and other assaults, many of which have been claimed by the local Daesh affiliate.
