37 dead after suicide attackers target two Afghan mosques

A damaged room at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. File picture: Xinhua/Rahmat Alizadah

A damaged room at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. File picture: Xinhua/Rahmat Alizadah

Published Oct 20, 2017

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Kabul - At least 37 people were killed when suicide bombers targeted mosques in Kabul and the western province of Ghor on Friday, officials said.

"Twnty-two bodies and 16 injured have been taken to Kabul hospitals," a spokesman for the ministry of health, Wahidullah Majroh, told dpa, adding that the number of casualties may raise.

A security source, who asked to remain anonymous, put the number of dead in the Kabul blast between 70 and 80.

Interior ministry spokesman Najib Daish said that a suicide attack occurred inside Imam Zaman, a Shi'a mosque in Dasht-e-Barchi, a western part of Kabul.

Ghor spokesman Abdulhai Khatibi said that a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device inside Khewiagan, a Sunni mosque in the district of Dulaina.

So far 15 bodies and 12 injured have been taken to hospitals in Ghor, Majroh said.

Muwen Ahmad, a provincial council member from Ghor, confirmed the suicide bombing, saying that 20 people have been killed.

Some others are still buried in rubble, Ahmad said, adding that the target was militia commander Fazl Ahad, who was praying inside the mosque.

Afghanistan's Shi'a minority is increasingly the target of attacks by the country's branch of the Islamic State group.

The extremist group regards Shi'a as heretics.

The Kabul attack is the third on a Shi'a mosque in the capital city within two months. Most have been claimed by the country's Islamic State branch.

On September 29, Islamic State militants targeted another Shi'a mosque in the Qala-e-Fathullah area of Kabul, killing seven and injuring 33 others. In August, Islamic State fighters killed at least 28 worshippers when they attacked another mosque.

dpa

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