Team News Riveting
A powerful explosion in a mosque in Kandahar city on Friday killed 35 people and injured 70 others.
This is the second incident in a successive Friday when mosque packed with worshippers had been attacked in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.
Eyewitnesses said three back-to-back explosions hit the mosque, one of the biggest in Kandahar city. Three men equipped with guns and explosives first opened fire on the worshipers and then detonated the explosives in three different parts of the city, they added.
On last Friday, an attack claimed by Islamic State militants had killed over 50 Shi’ite worshippers at a mosque in Kunduz.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Friday’s attack in Kandahar, but Islamic State claimed the similar bombing that killed scores of Shi’ites in the northern city of Kunduz a week earlier.
The attacks have caused shock and terror among members of Afghanistan’s Shi’ite minority and undermine the ruling Taliban movement’s claim to have restored security since taking control of the country in August. Most Shi’ites in Afghanistan belong to the Hazara ethnic group of Persian speakers, who have complained of persecution under the mainly Pashtun-speaking Taliban in the past
The local affiliate of Islamic State, known as Islamic State Khorasan after an ancient name for the region covering Afghanistan, has stepped up attacks following the Taliban victory over the Western-backed government in Kabul in August.
Taliban officials have played down the threat from Islamic State, and dismissed suggestions they may accept U.S. help to fight the group.
Zabihullah Mujahid, deputy minister for the Ministry of Information and Culture, also condemned the attack and called it a major crime. Former president Hamid Karzai condemned the attack as well.
