Thursday 18 August 2022
Islamabad (Urdu Point. DW Urdu. August 18, 2022) It is reported that several people were killed and dozens injured in a powerful explosion in a mosque in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, on Wednesday evening. Police say the attack appears to have resulted in multiple casualties, but no one has yet provided an exact number of casualties.
According to some reports, at least 22 people have been killed and more than 40 injured.
Khalid Zadran, the head of the Kabul police department, confirmed the explosion inside a mosque in the northern part of the city, but he also did not give the number of casualties.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the blast and said, "The perpetrators of such crimes will soon be brought to justice and punished."
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The exact death toll is still unclear as news agencies have provided different reports. AFP says that three people were killed in the explosion, while the AP news agency put the death toll at ten.
A Taliban intelligence official told Reuters news agency that about 35 people were injured or killed and the death toll was expected to rise.
Another suicide attack
The explosion took place inside the Siddiquiya Mosque in Khairkhana, the northern area of the capital Kabul, during Maghrib prayers, in which the imam of the mosque was also killed. The name of the deceased scholar has been given as Mullah Amir Muhammad Kabuli. According to reports, a suicide bomber detonated the blast.
An eyewitness said on condition of anonymity that more than 30 people were injured.
Emergency, an Italian non-governmental organization working in Kabul, says at least 27 wounded civilians, including five children, were brought to it for treatment from the blast site.
In this regard, in some unconfirmed photos shared on social media, it can be seen that at least six bodies are lying scattered on the ground.No group has yet claimed responsibility for the blast.
Since the Taliban seized power in August last year, Afghanistan has been under regular attacks and the responsibility for most of such attacks has been claimed by the so-called Islamic extremist organization "Islamic State".
Just last week, there was a suicide attack in a seminary in Kabul, in which a well-known scholar linked to the Taliban, Rahimullah Haqqani, was killed,and the responsibility for this attack was also claimed by the Islamic State.
A Taliban insurgent leader was killed
Meanwhile, in a separate incident, the Taliban confirmed on Wednesday that they had captured and killed Mahdi Mujahid in western Herat province while he was trying to cross the border into Iran.
Mehdi Mujahid was a former Taliban commander in Balkhab district of northern Sir Pul province and was the only member of the minority Shia Hazara community in the ranks of the Taliban. However, he resented and opposed some of the Taliban's decisions. . For the past one year, he had turned against the Taliban. According to reports, the Taliban were looking for him and that is why he wanted to leave the country.
(AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)
