Dozens killed in mosque explosion throughout Friday prayers in northern Afghanistan
A Taliban spokesman mentioned an explosion occurred in a mosque throughout Friday prayers in northern Afghanistan, killing 33 folks and wounding 43, only a day after the Islamic State group claimed accountability for 2 separate lethal assaults.
Since Taliban fighters took management of Afghanistan final 12 months after toppling the US-backed authorities, the variety of bombings has decreased however the jihadist and Sunni Islamic State group has continued its assaults in opposition to targets they see as heretical.
A sequence of bombings rocked the nation this week, with lethal assaults focusing on a faculty and mosque in Shiite neighborhoods. Taliban authorities spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid mentioned on Twitter that youngsters have been amongst 33 folks killed in Friday’s blast at a mosque within the northern province of Kunduz.
“We condemn this crime… and specific our deepest sympathy to the victims,” he mentioned, including that 43 others have been injured. Footage posted on social media, which couldn’t be instantly verified, confirmed holes within the partitions of Moloy Sikander. A well-known mosque for the Sufis within the Imam Sahib neighborhood north of Kunduz metropolis.
Jihadist teams equivalent to ISIS harbor a deep hatred of Sufis, whom they contemplate heretics and accuse them of polytheism – the best sin in Islam – as a result of they sought the intercession of the lifeless from the lifeless. Muhammad Issa, a shopkeeper who helped transport the victims to the realm hospital, informed AFP that the prayers contained in the mosque have been both wounded or killed.
One other native resident mentioned, “I noticed 20 to 30 our bodies.” Family of the victims have been arriving on the hospital to search for their family members. A person shouted, “My son was martyred,” whereas a girl together with her 4 youngsters was in search of her. A nurse informed AFP by cellphone that between 30 and 40 folks have been admitted for therapy for blast wounds, and Kunduz police mentioned they have been investigating the kind of blast.
The Friday bombing was one of many largest assaults because the Taliban seized energy in August final 12 months, and in October a suicide assault at a Shiite mosque, additionally in Kunduz, killed not less than 55 folks and wounded dozens, an assault additionally claimed by the Islamic State. . . ISIS’s regional department has repeatedly focused Shiites and minorities equivalent to Sufis in Afghanistan.
The Islamic State is a Sunni Islamist group just like the Taliban, however they’re bitter rivals, and the most important ideological distinction between them is that the Taliban solely sought an Afghanistan freed from international forces, whereas the Islamic State desires an Islamic caliphate stretching from Turkey to Pakistan and past. . Friday’s bombing comes a day after ISIS claimed accountability for a bomb assault on a Shiite mosque within the northern metropolis of Mazar-i-Sharif, killing not less than 12 worshipers and wounding 58 folks.
In addition they claimed accountability for a separate assault in Kunduz metropolis on Thursday that killed 4 folks and injured 18 others, and no group has but claimed two twin explosions on a boys’ college in a Shiite neighborhood of Kabul on Tuesday, killing six folks and wounding greater than 25. .
Shiite Afghans, largely Hazaras, make up between 10 and 20 % of Afghanistan’s 38 million folks, and Sufis, a minority in Sunni-majority Afghanistan, have confronted a number of assaults previously. In November 2018, a suicide assault at a marriage occasion in Kabul killed dozens, largely Sufis.
Earlier on Friday, Taliban authorities mentioned that they had arrested the “mastermind” of the Islamic State group’s bombing Thursday at a mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif. Taliban officers insist their forces have defeated the Islamic State, however analysts say the jihadist group presents a significant safety problem.
(AFP)
