By Radio Free Afghanistan
May 22, 2021
The death toll from bombings outside a high school in the Afghan capital has risen to 100 dead and 160 wounded, says the office of Sarwar Danish, Afghanistan’s second vice president.
Three powerful bombs detonated outside the Sayed Ul-Shuhada high school in Kabul on May 8 as students, many of them teenage girls, were leaving class.
The attack occurred in Dasht-e-Barchi, a predominately Shi’ite enclave in Kabul that is home to the Hazara minority.
Islamic State (IS) and Taliban militants — Sunni extremist groups that consider Shi’a apostates — have been blamed for devastating attacks that have killed hundreds of Hazara in the area in recent years.
Danish’s office said on May 21 that many of the hundreds of survivors were severely wounded by the blasts.
It warned that the death toll could rise further.
The attack, which was not claimed by any group, was one of the deadliest since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 toppled the Taliban from power.
Violence has soared in Afghanistan since the start of the international troop withdrawal on May 1, with the Taliban seizing districts and overrunning government military bases in rural areas.
There has also been a sharp uptick in deadly suicide bombings in urban areas that have been blamed on the Taliban.
Tolo News: Protests entered the eighth day in Faryab province on Saturday as hundreds of people rallied against the appointment of the new governor. In the latest sign of escalating tensions, protestors on Saturday took to the streets in Maimana city in front of 209 Shaheen Army Corps where a week ago Ashraf Ghani-backed governor Mohammad Daud Laghmani started his job as new governor for the province. “Ghani wants to impose the evil that exists in his mind about Turks in Afghanistan,” said Mohammad Qasim, a protester. 
Tolo News: An airport in Khost, which aims to become one of the international airports in the country, will be fully operational in near future, a progress that will happen 10 years after the start of its construction, officials said but did not provide an exact time. Afghanistan has four international airports in Kabul, Herat, Balkh and Kandahar. 
Tolo News: The Ministry of Public Health on Saturday reported 242 new positive cases of COVID-19 out of 1,493 samples tested in the last 24 hours. The ministry reported that the cumulative total of known COVID-19 cases is 65,728, the total number of reported deaths is 2,802, and the total number of recoveries is 55,886. 
Radio Free Afghanistan
The American Conservative: To his credit, President Joe Biden decided to pull American troops out of Afghanistan by September. However, they aren’t out yet. And President Donald Trump’s struggle against his own staff and the military brass demonstrates the power of Washington, D.C.’s war lobby. If there is conflict anywhere in the world, the latter wants America in it. 
Tolo News: Afghanistan’s national taekwondo team missed the Asian qualifying matches for the Tokyo Olympics over positive tests of three members of the squad amidst their trip to Jordan this week. Their coach has also tested positive for COVID-19.