Five years after the Taliban returned to power, Afghanistan’s Hazara and Shia communities continue to face a deadly security environment marked by suicide bombings, targeted killings, armed attacks and violence in civilian spaces.
United Nations reporting and documentation by human rights organizations indicate that more than 50 major attacks targeting Hazara and Shia communities have occurred since August 2021, leaving hundreds dead and injured. Broader assessments put the number of casualties from such attacks and related violence at more than 1,000 during the five-year period.
The pattern is particularly disturbing because some of the worst attacks have taken place in places that should offer protection rather than danger, including schools, examination centres, mosques, sports facilities, buses and roads.
The concentration of violence was particularly severe between 2021 and 2023, when a series of mass-casualty suicide bombings struck Shia mosques, educational institutions and public gatherings. Although the frequency of some large-scale attacks subsequently declined, targeted assassinations, armed assaults and other forms of sectarian violence continued.
Kabul’s Hazara Enclave Bears the Brunt
Kabul has remained one of the principal centres of violence against Hazaras and Shias, particularly Dasht-e-Barchi, a densely populated Hazara area in the western part of the capital.
Educational institutions, mosques, sports facilities and public gatherings in the area have repeatedly been targeted.
One of the most devastating attacks struck the Kaaj educational centre in September 2022, when a suicide bombing at an examination preparation facility killed more than 50 people and wounded scores of others. Most of the victims were young students, including girls.
The attack demonstrated the horrifying nature of the threat: even young Afghans preparing for examinations were not beyond the reach of terrorists.
Earlier, successive explosions outside Abdul Rahim Shaheed School in Dasht-e-Barchi also killed and injured students.
Other attacks have targeted passenger vehicles and public spaces in the Hazara neighbourhood, including through magnetic explosives attached to buses and other vehicles.
The cumulative effect has been profound. For many Hazara families, attending school, travelling through the city or worshipping at a mosque has carried the possibility of becoming the next target.
Mosques Turned Into Killing Grounds
The violence has not been confined to Kabul.
Some of Afghanistan’s deadliest attacks against Shias have struck mosques during Friday prayers, when large numbers of worshippers gather.
In October 2021, a suicide bombing at the Sayyedabad Mosque in Kunduz killed more than 50 people and wounded around 140 others.
The same month, a series of explosions at the Bibi Fatima Mosque in Kandahar killed at least 60 people and wounded dozens more.
In April 2022, an explosion at the Three-Dukan Mosque in Mazar-e-Sharif killed more than 30 worshippers and injured around 90.
A suicide attack at an Imam Zaman Mosque in Pul-e-Khumri, Baghlan, in October 2023 also caused dozens of casualties.
In Herat, an attack on worshippers leaving an Imam Zaman Mosque in 2024 killed six people, including a child.
These attacks illustrate a particularly brutal pattern. Religious gatherings, where civilians assemble in large numbers and security is difficult to maintain, have repeatedly been transformed into mass-casualty targets.
Violence Beyond the Cities
The threat has also extended into central and western Afghanistan.
In Daikundi, Ghor and Uruzgan, violence has frequently taken the form of armed ambushes, attacks on passenger vehicles and shootings on roads.
In September 2024, 14 Shia residents of Daikundi were reportedly killed while travelling to welcome pilgrims returning from Karbala.
Herat has also witnessed targeted killings of Shia religious figures and community activists, including a series of assassinations reported during 2023 and 2024.
These attacks demonstrate that the threat facing Hazaras and Shias is not limited to spectacular suicide bombings. Where large-scale attacks are difficult to execute, targeted shootings and ambushes can create the same atmosphere of fear.
ISKP Claims, But the Security Question Remains
ISKP has claimed responsibility for many of the deadliest attacks against Shia mosques, Hazara neighborhoods, educational institutions and public gatherings.
The group has openly promoted sectarian violence and repeatedly demonstrated its ability to strike soft civilian targets.
Other killings and attacks remain unclaimed, particularly incidents involving targeted assassinations, roadside attacks and violence in remote areas. Their perpetrators are therefore more difficult to establish independently.
This creates another problem: accountability.
The Taliban have repeatedly announced arrests or the elimination of ISIS-K members following major attacks and have claimed that their security operations have weakened the organization.
Yet the continued occurrence of attacks raises a fundamental question: If the Taliban claim to have established complete control over Afghanistan, why do vulnerable communities continue to face such persistent insecurity?
Control of territory is not synonymous with protection of citizens.
A government claiming to have restored security must ultimately be judged by whether ordinary people can attend school, worship, travel and gather without fearing that they will become targets.
The Promise of Security Under Scrutiny
The Taliban’s return to power was accompanied by repeated promises that Afghanistan would no longer be a battlefield and that security would be restored throughout the country.
But for Hazara and Shia communities, the end of the previous nationwide war did not mean the end of fear.
The continued attacks expose a significant weakness in the Taliban’s security narrative.
Checkpoints established after attacks, searches and investigations conducted following bombings, and announcements of arrests or security operations may provide short-term responses. They do not, however, answer the larger question of how vulnerable communities can be protected over the long term.
International observers and human rights organizations have repeatedly called for stronger protection of civilians, transparent investigations and meaningful accountability.
Those demands become especially important when victims belong to communities that have historically faced discrimination and persecution.
Five Years, But No Guarantee of Safety
The record of the past five years presents a grim contradiction.
The Taliban claim that their takeover ended Afghanistan’s long war and brought nationwide security. Yet the Hazara and Shia experience demonstrates that the disappearance of conventional frontlines does not automatically produce civilian safety.
A classroom can become a target.
A mosque can become a target.
A bus can become a target.
A road can become a target.
Even a gathering of people welcoming travelers home can become a target.
For the victims and their families, the distinction between a large battlefield and a terrorist attack in a civilian neighborhood offers little comfort.
The deeper problem is that repeated violence changes how an entire community lives. Parents become fearful of sending their children to school. Worshippers hesitate before entering mosques. Travelers worry about public transport. Community figures become vulnerable to targeted assassination.
That is how terrorism achieves an impact beyond its immediate casualties.
It changes behavior, restricts freedom and creates a permanent atmosphere of insecurity.
Five years into Taliban rule, Afghanistan’s Hazara and Shia communities therefore have a simple but fundamental demand: security must mean more than the Taliban’s control over territory. It must mean the protection of every citizen, including communities that remain among the country’s most vulnerable.
Until schools, mosques, roads and public spaces can be used without fear, claims of restored security will remain incomplete.
And for Afghanistan’s Hazaras and Shias, the question is no longer merely who controls the country.
It is whether those who control it can actually protect the people living in it.
The record shows that Taliban claims of restored security remain incomplete until the state can protect Hazaras and Shias in schools, mosques, on roads and in public spaces without recurring attacks.
