A bombing at a mosque within the Afghan capital of Kabul all over night prayers on Wednesday killed a minimum of 10 other folks, together with a outstanding cleric, and wounded a minimum of 27, an eyewitness and police stated.
There was once no fast declare of accountability for the assault, the most recent to strike the rustic within the yr because the Taliban seized energy. Several youngsters had been reported to be some of the wounded.
The Islamic State team’s native associate has stepped up assaults focused on the Taliban and civilians because the former insurgents’ takeover closing August as US and NATO troops had been within the ultimate levels in their withdrawal from the rustic. Last week, the IS claimed accountability for killing a outstanding Taliban cleric at his spiritual heart in Kabul.
According to the eyewitness, a resident of town’s Kher Khanna community the place the Siddiquiya Mosque was once focused, the explosion was once performed by way of a suicide bomber. The slain cleric was once Mullah Amir Mohammad Kabuli, the eyewitness stated, talking on situation of anonymity as a result of he was once now not licensed to speak to the media.
He added that greater than 30 other folks had been wounded. The Italian Emergency health facility in Kabul stated that a minimum of 27 wounded civilians, together with 5 youngsters, had been introduced there from the website online of the bomb blast.
There had been fears the casualty numbers may just upward thrust additional.
Khalid Zadran, the Taliban-appointed spokesman for the Kabul police leader, showed an explosion within a mosque in northern Kabul however would now not supply a casualty toll or a breakdown of the useless and wounded.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid additionally condemned the explosion and vowed that the “perpetrators of such crimes will quickly be dropped at justice and might be punished.”
A US-led invasion toppled the former Taliban govt, which had hosted al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, following the 11 September 2001 terrorist assaults within the United States.
Since regaining energy, the previous insurgents have confronted a crippling financial disaster because the world group, which doesn’t acknowledge the Taliban govt, iced over investment to the rustic.
Separately, the Taliban showed on Wednesday that they’d captured and killed Mehdi Mujahid in western Herat province as he was once seeking to move the border into Iran.
Mujahid was once a former Taliban commander within the district of Balkhab in northern Sar-e-Pul province, and the one member of the minority Shiite Hazara group some of the Taliban ranks.
Mujahid had became towards the Taliban over the last yr, after opposing choices made by way of Taliban leaders in Kabul.
