A group of tourists and their companions were shot at while walking through a market in central Afghanistan.
Three Afghan citizens and three Spanish tourists were killed in central Afghanistan's Bamiyan province, the Taliban government said, as the death toll from a market attack rose.
On Saturday, the government said the bodies of the three Afghans and the three Spanish tourists were transported to the capital, Kabul.
The group was attacked on Friday while walking through a bazaar in the mountainous city of Bamiyan, about 180 kilometers (110 miles) from Kabul.
“All the bodies have been transferred to Kabul and are in the forensic department and the injured are also in Kabul. Both the dead and the injured include women,” Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani told the AFP news agency.
“Of the eight injured, four of them foreigners, only one elderly foreigner is not in a very stable situation.”
According to hospital sources in Bamiyan, the injured came from Norway, Australia, Lithuania and Spain.
Qani said the dead included two Afghan civilians and a Taliban member.
“They were wandering around the bazaar when they were attacked,” he added.
Seven suspects were detained and one of them was injured, according to Qani, who said the investigation was continuing.
No group has taken responsibility for the attack.
The Spanish government announced Friday that three of the dead were Spanish tourists and added that at least one other Spanish citizen was injured.
“Overwhelmed by the news of the murder of Spanish tourists in Afghanistan,” published the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, in X.
The bodies would probably be returned to Spain on Sunday, according to Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares on Spanish public television TVE.
He said one of the injured had already undergone surgery in Kabul.
Afghanistan's ailing tourism sector has seen the number of foreign tourists increase by 120 percent year-on-year in 2023, reaching almost 5,200, according to official figures.
Bamiyan is Afghanistan's top tourist destination, home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the remains of two giant Buddha statues that the Taliban blew up during their previous rule in Afghanistan in 2001.
Since regaining control of the country in 2021 following the withdrawal of US-led forces, the Taliban have promised to restore security and encourage a small but growing number of tourists.
Friday's attack was the deadliest since the Taliban took power three years ago.
The Spanish embassy was evacuated in 2021, along with other Western missions, after the Taliban regained control of Kabul.
