On Friday, fighters shot “Christian tourists and their Shiite companions with machine guns in the mountain town of Bamijan,” the group said on Telegram’s online service on Sunday. They attacked a “bus carrying tourists who are citizens of coalition countries,” referring to the US-led coalition fighting IS in the region. The attack was in accordance with IS leadership’s instructions to attack nationals of coalition countries, the report said.
Three people were killed in the attack Spaniards and killed three local residents, several people from Spain, Lithuania, Norway, Australia and Afghanistan were injured. The tour group was shot at on Friday while shopping in a bazaar in Bamijan, about 180 kilometers from the capital Kabul.
There were once huge Buddha statues in Bamijan, but they were destroyed in 2001 by the radical Islamic Taliban. Nevertheless, the city remains one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations.