The governor of Herat province, Abdul Wahid Qatali, said a planted bomb went off near Rosenak railway station in the city of Ghurian at 10:30 am (local time) on Tuesday and led to the death of four guards of the Herat-Khaf railway and wounded two others.
The injured and the bodies of those killed in the incident have been transferred to Herat Hospital, he added.
Some Afghan media outlets reported that due to the strategically important location of the route, the Taliban group is trying to gain control of it by creating insecurity.
The Herat-Khaf railway was inaugurated in December 2020, during a ceremony attended by President Hassan Rouhani and his Afghan counterpart Ashraf Ghani.
The 220-km railroad connects the city of Khaf in Iran’s northeastern province of Khorasan Razavi to Herat in the west of Afghanistan.
The project provides landlocked Afghanistan with access to free waters and the European market through Iran’s rail network that connects it to Bandar Abbas and Chabahar Port.
It is also an important part of the East-West Railroad Corridor with a length of about 2,000 km, involving China, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and Europe.
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