A bombing at a mosque within the Afghan capital Kabul throughout night prayers has killed at the least 21 folks, together with a distinguished cleric, and wounded at the least 33 others, witnesses and police mentioned.
Tright here was no rapid declare of accountability for the assault on Wednesday night time, the most recent to strike the nation within the 12 months for the reason that Taliban seized energy.
A number of youngsters had been reported to be among the many wounded.
The so-called Islamic State group’s native affiliate has stepped up assaults focusing on the Taliban and civilians for the reason that former insurgents’ takeover final August as US and Nato troops had been within the last levels of their withdrawal from the nation.
Final week, the extremists claimed accountability for killing a distinguished Taliban cleric at his spiritual centre in Kabul.
Khalid Zadran, the spokesman for Kabul’s Taliban police chief, gave the figures to the Related Press (AP) for the bombing on the Siddiquiya mosque within the metropolis’s Kher Khanna neighbourhood.
A witness informed the AP the explosion was carried out by a suicide bomber.
The killed cleric was Mullah Amir Mohammad Kabuli, the witness mentioned.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the explosion and vowed that the “perpetrators of such crimes will quickly be delivered to justice and shall be punished”.
There have been fears the casualty numbers might rise additional.
On Thursday morning, one witness to the blast who gave his identify as Qyaamuddin informed the AP he believed as many as 25 folks 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 identify.
AP journalists might see the blue-roofed, Sunni mosque from a close-by hillside.
The Taliban parked police vans and different autos on the mosque, whereas a number of males carried out one coffin for a sufferer of the assault.
A US-led invasion toppled the earlier Taliban authorities, which had hosted al Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, following the September 11 2001 terrorist assaults in the USA.
Since regaining energy, the previous insurgents have confronted a crippling financial disaster because the worldwide neighborhood, which doesn't recognise 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 was not instantly clear what subjects they deliberate to debate.
Individually, the Taliban confirmed on Wednesday that that they had captured and killed Mehdi Mujahid in western Herat province as he was attempting to cross the border into Iran.
Mujahid was a former Taliban commander within the district of Balkhab in northern Sar-e-Pul province, and the one member of the minority Shiite Hazara neighborhood among the many Taliban ranks.
Mujahid had turned towards the Taliban over the previous 12 months, after opposing choices made by Taliban leaders in Kabul.