Images on social media show bodies and debris inside the mosque, used by the minority Shia Muslim community
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI— A suicide bomber targeted a mosque in Afghanistan’s Kunduz city during Friday prayers, killing at least 50 people, officials said. The Associated Press, quoting a Taliban police official say at least 100 people have been killed and wounded.
As a result of a terrible explosion during the Friday prayers in a Shiite mosque In Kunduz province, 100 people were killed and 80 injured.#standwithpanjshirresistance pic.twitter.com/tlNUbNGdBJ
— ahmad jan (@farhadaman31) October 8, 2021
Images on social media showed bodies and debris inside the mosque, used by the minority Shia Muslim community, the BBC reported.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
IS-K, the Afghan regional affiliate of IS or Islamic State that is violently opposed to the Taliban, has carried out several bombings recently, largely in the eastern part of the country.
The Deputy Minister of Information and Culture, Zabiullah Mujahid, confirmed the incident.
“Today in the afternoon, in the Khanabad Bandar area in the capital city of Kunduz, a blast targeted a mosque belonging to our Shia citizens, which martyred and wounded a number of our compatriots,” he added.
Zalmai Alokzai, a local businessman who rushed to a hospital to check whether doctors needed blood donations, described seeing chaotic scenes.
If confirmed, the death toll in Friday’s attack would be the highest in an attack by militants since U.S. and NATO troops left Afghanistan at the end of August and the Taliban took control of the country. – With input from IANS