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Suicide bomber targets French school in Kabul

An explosion has hit a French cultural centre inside a high school in the Afghan capital, Kabul, Al Jazeera has learned.

A senior Afghan official told the Associated Press news agency that a teenage suicide bomber carried out the attack inside the compound of Istiqlal High School, killing at least one person and wounding 15, one seriously.

Acting interior minister, Mohammad Ayoub Salangi said the lone fatality was a German national, but he does not know if the person is a man or a woman.

The blast was the second suicide attack that hit Kabul on Thursday. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for both attacks.

Officials said the auditorium, which has a capacity of more than 100, was packed to the full with men, women and children, some of whom were foreign nationals, when the suspect detonated the explosives concealed in his clothes.

A Kabul police spokesman, Hashmat Stanakzai, told Al Jazeera that the attacker was 16 or 17 years old.

Al Jazeera’s Jennifer Glasse, reporting from Kabul, said the attack took place in a “very secure part” of the city.

A documentary film [not a play] entitled, ‘Heartbeat, the silence after the explosion’, was going on, when the attack happened, our correspondent said. 

“This is one of the few secure places where people can go out and enjoy some shows,” she added. “People are searched before going into this compound.”

The French Embassy said that all the French citizens were safe.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius condemned the attack as “barbaric”.

“I firmly condemn this terrorist act which caused the death of several people and left many injured,” Fabius said in a statement.

Earlier, a suicide bomber targeted a bus carrying Afghan army personnel, killing six soldiers and wounding 11 people. That attack was claimed by the Taliban.

Also on Thursday, Taliban fighters attacked a busy bazaar in the western province of Herat, officials said.