Taliban authorities in Afghanistan said Friday that unknown assailants fatally shot three Western tourists and their local translator in the central city of Bamiyan.
The late-afternoon shooting in a busy central market also injured four people, including a foreigner, a spokesman for the Taliban-led Afghan Interior Ministry said.
Abdul Mateen Qani shared the details on his official account on the social media platform X, but he did not disclose the foreigners' nationalities.
He said Taliban security forces' efforts to apprehend the attackers led to the arrests of four suspects linked to the assault.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the deadly shooting.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan strongly condemns this incident, expresses its sympathy to the families of the victims, and assures them that all the criminals involved will be found and brought to justice,” Qani said, using the official title of the Taliban government.
Area officials and residents were reported as saying that the foreign tourists came from Spain, Norway and Turkey, among other countries. However, the reports could not be verified from independent sources.
A spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy of the European Union condemned the armed attack against the tourists visiting Bamiyan.
“Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the victims who lost their lives and those injured in the attack,” Nabila Massrali said in a statement.
“The United States is deeply saddened to hear about the shooting attack in Bamiyan, which killed and wounded Afghan civilians and foreign nationals,” Thomas West, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, said on X. “Our thoughts are with those who lost their loved ones. Violence is not the answer.”
Friday’s attack on foreign tourists was the first since the Taliban stormed back to power in Afghanistan in August 2021.
Bamiyan, one of the poorest regions in impoverished Afghanistan, is a popular destination for foreign tourists because it contains Buddhist monastic ensembles and sanctuaries, according to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The scenic city was also the spot where the Taliban destroyed two large Buddha statues in March 2001 during their previous rule in Afghanistan. The group said the statues were blasphemous under Islam.
