A massive explosion at a mosque left at least 37 dead and 70 injured in the southern Afghanistan city of Kandahar, local officials said. The explosion occurred at 1:00 pm local time (5:30 am GMT) during Friday prayers, which usually gather large numbers of worshipers, at the Imam-Bargah mosque, the largest frequented by Shiite Muslims in the city.
This is the second attack on a Shiite mosque in two consecutive Fridays and takes place in the city considered the center of the Taliban regime.
People who were injured as a result of the action were taken to the municipal hospital, a city government official told Efe, who asked to be kept anonymous.
Qari Saeed Khosty, a spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, confirmed the explosion inside the mosque, which he said caused an undetermined number of deaths.
“Special forces from the Islamic Emirate (as the Taliban call themselves) arrived at the scene to determine the nature of the attack and other details, in addition to bringing the culprits to justice,” said the representative of the ministry.
A witness told the AFP news agency that he heard three explosions: one at the main gate of the mosque, one in an area to the south and a third at the place where the faithful wash. Another witness told the Associated Press agency that four suicide bombers attacked the temple – two detonated explosives at a security gate, allowing the other two to enter to attack the congregation of believers.
So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
A week ago, in another attack on a Shiite mosque in the northern city of Kunduz, at least 80 people died and around 100 were injured.
Last week’s attack was claimed by the jihadist group Islamic State and increased tension among Shiites, which began with the Taliban takeover in the Asian country on 15 August.
Minority leaders in Kunduz have called on fundamentalists to offer protection to Shiites as well as places of worship after banning the use of weapons for their own safety.
In recent years, ISIS has carried out numerous attacks against the Shiite minority, especially against the Hazara ethnic group, although today, some of the victims were Pashtun, the majority in the country and which is the ethnicity of the Taliban.