A suicide blast at an education center in Afghanistan’s capital city of Kabul on Friday killed at least 19 persons, Reuters reported, citing the police.

Kabul Police spokesperson Khalid Zadran said that 27 persons have also been injured in the attack that took place in Dasht-e-Barchi area of western Kabul, Afghanistan-based TOLO News reported. He added that students came to the education institute to appear for an entrance exam.

Most of the population living in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood are from the Hazara community, an ethnic minority, targeted in past attacks launched by militant group Islamic State, among others, reported Reuters.

The recent bombing is in addition to a series of attacks that have taken place in Afghanistan this year.

On September 5, two Russian diplomats were killed in Kabul following a suicide bombing outside the country’s embassy. The attack had also injured 11 persons.

On September 2, an explosion at a mosque in Herat killed pro-Taliban scholar Mujib-ul Rahman Ansari along with 17 civilians.

In April, another round of explosions had targeted educational institutions, killing at least six persons in Dasht-e-Barchi.

In 2020, a suicide bomb attack at an education centre in Kabul had killed 24. Many of the victims were teenage students. The attack took place in an area populated mostly by members of Afghanistan’s minority Shiite community.

Shia Muslims and members of the Hazara community have been attacked by both the Taliban and the Islamic State as they consider them heretics. As Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, most of the recent attacks in the country have been claimed by the Islamic State.