Gunmen kill 14 in a Shiite area of Afghanistan in one of the deadliest attacks this year

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Gunmen killed 14 people in a Shiite-majority area in central Afghanistan, the Taliban said Friday, in one of the deadliest attacks in the country this year. Six other people were wounded in the assault.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility before the Taliban acknowledged the shootings, which took place Thursday and targeted people as they traveled between the Shiite-majority provinces of Ghor and Daikundi.

A machine gun was used in the assault, the IS group said. It gave a higher death toll than the Taliban.

The Iranian news agency IRNA quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani as saying the group had targeted people welcoming Afghan Shiites who were returning from visiting shrines in Iraq. He called for immediate action to punish those behind the crime.

The group’s affiliate in the country, a major rival to the Taliban, has challenged authorities’ grip on domestic security by attacking schools, hospitals, mosques and Shiite areas during the past three years.

The Taliban’s chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid strongly condemned Thursday’s “barbaric action” and that authorities considered it their obligation to protect people and their property.

“We are also making serious efforts to search for the perpetrators and bring them to justice,” he added.

Earlier this month, an IS suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden vest at a prosecutor’s office in the capital Kabul. In May, a booby-trapped motorcycle exploded in northeastern Badakhshan province and killed police officers who were part of an anti-poppy cultivation campaign.

A U.N.-appointed rights expert said he was alarmed by the spate of IS-claimed attacks.

The appalling killings of Shiite Hazara bore the hallmarks of international crimes, said Richard Bennett, whom the Taliban have barred from Afghanistan.

The Associated Press