Mourners carry the physique of a sufferer of a mosque bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 18. 2022.
Credit score: AP Photograph/Ebrahim Noroozi
A bombing at a mosque within the Afghan capital of Kabul throughout night prayers killed at the least 21 individuals, together with a distinguished cleric, and wounded at the least 33 others, eyewitnesses and police mentioned Thursday.
There was no quick declare of duty for the assault on Wednesday night time, the newest to strike the nation within the yr for the reason that Taliban seized energy. A number of kids have been reported to be among the many wounded.
The Islamic State group’s native affiliate has stepped up assaults towards the Taliban and civilians for the reason that former insurgents took over the nation final yr as U.S. and NATO troops have been within the remaining levels of their withdrawal. Final week, the extremists claimed duty for killing a distinguished Taliban cleric at his spiritual middle in Kabul.
The mosque bombing comes simply two days after the anniversary of the autumn of Kabul on August 15, 2021.
Khalid Zadran, the spokesman for Kabul’s Taliban police chief, gave the newest figures to The Related Press for the bombing on the Siddiquiya mosque within the metropolis’s Kher Khanna neighborhood. An eyewitness instructed the AP the explosion was carried out by a suicide bomber.
The slain cleric was Mullah Amir Mohammad Kabuli, the eyewitness mentioned, talking on situation of anonymity as a result of he was not licensed to speak to the media.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the explosion and vowed that the “perpetrators of such crimes will quickly be dropped at justice and shall be punished.”
There have been fears the casualty numbers may rise additional. On Thursday morning, one witness to the blast who gave his title as Qyaamuddin instructed the AP he believed as many as 25 individuals might have been killed within the blast.
“It was night prayer time, and I used to be attending the prayer with others, when the explosion occurred,” Qyaamuddin mentioned. Some Afghans go by a single title.
AP journalists may see the blue-roofed, Sunni mosque from a close-by hillside. The Taliban parked police vehicles and different autos on the mosque, whereas a number of males carried out one casket for a sufferer of the assault.
Throughout their earlier, 1996-2001 rule of Afghanistan, the Taliban imposed their harsh interpretation of Islamic legal guidelines, severely limiting particular person freedoms and particularly the rights of ladies. A U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban, who had additionally hosted al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, following the September 11, 2001 terrorist assaults in the US.
Since regaining energy, the previous insurgents have confronted a crippling financial disaster because the worldwide neighborhood, which doesn’t acknowledge the Taliban authorities, froze funding to the nation. On Thursday, the Taliban hosted a gathering of three,000 tribal elders, spiritual students, and others in Kandahar, their state-run Bakhtar Information Company reported. It wasn’t instantly clear what matters they deliberate to debate.
Since sweeping to energy in August 2021, the Taliban have been battling the surging Islamic State affiliate often called Islamic State in Khorasan Province or IS-Ok, which is proving to be an intractable safety problem for Afghanistan’s Taliban-run authorities.
The group has attracted many militants to its violent and excessive ideology, together with guarantees of a caliphate to unite the Islamic world — a aim by no means espoused by the Taliban. Additionally, IS requires a worldwide jihad, or holy warfare, towards non-Muslims, whereas the Taliban have confined their wrestle to Afghanistan.
In one other growth, the Taliban confirmed on Wednesday that they’d captured and killed Mehdi Mujahid in western Herat province as he was making an attempt to cross the border into Iran.
Mujahid was a former Taliban commander within the district of Balkhab in northern Sar-e-Pul province, and a uncommon member of the minority Shiite Hazara neighborhood among the many Taliban ranks.
Mujahid had turned towards the Taliban over the previous yr, after opposing selections made by Taliban leaders in Kabul.
