At least 25 people were killed by bomb blasts in Afghan cities Thursday — including 10 at a mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif, the second attack against a Shiite target this week."There are at least 25 casualties," Zabihullah Noorani, head of Balkh province's information and culture department, told AFP.
The number of bombings in Afghanistan has dwindled since the Taliban returned to power in August, but the group has claimed several since then.Grisly images of victims being carried to hospital from Seh Dokan mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif were posted on social media.
The images, which could not be independently verified, showed a scene littered with broken glass.
A police official said 25 people were killed, and 15 wounded.
Separately, at least four people were killed and 18 wounded by a blast in Kunduz city.
Provincial police spokesman Obaidullah Abedi told AFP it was caused by a bicycle bomb targeting a vehicle carrying mechanics working for a Taliban military unit.
Afghanistan's Shiite Hazara community, which makes up between 10 and 20% of the country's 38 million people, has long been the target of attacks — some blamed on the Taliban and others on IS.
On Tuesday, two blasts outside a school in a Shiite neighbourhood of Kabul killed at least six people and wounded 25 others.
Daesh claimed responsibility for an attack in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Thursday, according to a statement on the group’s Telegram channel.
An explosion at a Shiite mosque in Mazar-e-Sharif killed or wounded at least 20 people, a local Taliban commander said.
“A blast happened in 2nd district inside a Shiite mosque, more than 20 killed and injured,” Mohammad Asif Wazeri, the spokesman for the Taliban commander in Mazar-e-Sharif said.
Zia Zendani, the spokesman for the provincial health authority, said around five people had been killed and more than 50 wounded in the blast.
The explosion came two days after blasts tore through a high school in a predominantly Shiite Hazara area in western Kabul, killing at least six people and wounding 11. The Shiite community, a religious minority in Afghanistan, is frequently targeted by Sunni militant groups, including Islamic State.
A resident of Mazar-e-Sharif said she was shopping with her sister in a nearby market when she heard a large explosion and saw smoke rising from the area around the mosque.
“The glass of the shops was broken and it was very crowded and everyone started to run,” the woman, who declined to be named, said.
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers say they have secured the country since taking power in August, but international officials and analysts say the risk of a resurgence in militancy remains and the Daesh militant group has claimed several attacks.
Since seizing power, the Taliban have regularly raided suspected IS hideouts in the eastern Nangarhar province.
Taliban officials insist their forces have defeated IS, but analysts say the group is a key security challenge.
It has claimed some of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan in recent years.
In May last year at least 85 people — mainly girl students — were killed and about 300 wounded when three bombs exploded near their school in the Shiite dominated Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood of Kabul.
No group claimed responsibility for that, but in October 2020 IS admitted a suicide attack on an educational centre in the same area that killed 24 people, including students.
In May 2020, the group was blamed for a bloody attack on a maternity ward of a hospital in the same neighbourhood that killed 25 people, including new mothers.
