Afghanistan | Three Spaniards were killed in a well-known tourist destination

Gunmen killed three Spanish tourists and wounded one in the province of Bamiyan in Afghanistan on Friday, according to the Reuters news agency, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain says.

A spokesman for the Taliban, the Islamist extremist movement that rules Afghanistan, also said that three “foreign” tourists and one Afghan citizen were killed in the attack. Later on Saturday, a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior Abdul Mateen Qani told news agency AFP that a total of three Afghans were killed in the attack. Of the dead Afghans, one was a member of the Taliban and two were civilians. The dead and wounded have been taken to the capital, Kabul.

Four people have been arrested. The reason for the attack had not been given as of Saturday morning Finnish time.

“I am shocked by the news of the death of Spanish tourists in Afghanistan,” wrote the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez messaging service in X.

Sánchez said he would follow the situation “closely” and that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would assist in all necessary ways.

of Bamiyan the province is located in a mountainous region in the central parts of Afghanistan west of Kabul. UNESCO is located in the area a world heritage site and the ruins of two huge Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

The Taliban administration has tried to attract tourists to the country by selling tickets to, for example, Buddha statues, Reuters reports. Qatari media al-Jazeera reported in April that the number of foreign tourists in Afghanistan would increase by 120 percent in 2023, although only slightly more than 5,000 tourists visited the country. The Taliban seized power in the country in 2021.

For example Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not recommend traveling to Afghanistan and describes the country’s security situation as very weak. Also Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs advises to avoid traveling to Afghanistan in all cases.

Friday’s attack was one of the most serious attacks on foreign tourists in recent years. In 2022, the jihadist terrorist organization Isis said it carried out an attack on a hotel in Kabul, in which five Chinese citizens were wounded.