A powerful explosion which occurred after Friday prayers at a Kabul mosque, has left no fewer than 50 worshippers dead its leader confirmed on Saturday morning, becoming the latest in a series of attacks on civilian targets in Afghanistan during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Africa Today News, New York gathered that the blast hit the Khalifa Sahib Mosque in the west of the capital in the early afternoon, said Besmullah Habib, who is the deputy spokesman for the interior ministry, who said the official confirmed death toll was 10.
The attack came as worshippers gathered after Friday prayers for a congregation known as Zikr – an act of religious remembrance practised by some Muslims but seen as heretical by some hardline Sunni groups at the Sunni mosque.
Sayed Fazil Agha, the head of the mosque, said someone they believed was a suicide bomber joined them in the ceremony and detonated explosives.
‘Black smoke rose and spread everywhere, dead bodies were everywhere,’ he told correspondents adding that his nephews were among the dead. ‘I myself survived, but lost my beloved ones.’
Resident Mohammad Sabir said he had seen wounded people being loaded into ambulances.
‘The blast was very loud, I thought my eardrums were cracked,’ he said.
A health source who spoke to correspondents under the condition of anonymity said hospitals had received 66 dead bodies and 78 wounded people so far.
Meanwhile, the United States and the United Nations’ mission to Afghanistan condemned the attack, with the latter saying it was part of an uptick in violence in recent weeks targeting minorities and adding that at least two U.N. staff members and their families were in the mosque at the time of the attack.
‘No words are strong enough to condemn this despicable act,’ said Mette Knudsen, the U.N. secretary general’s deputy special representative for Afghanistan.
Emergency Hospital in downtown Kabul said it was treating 21 patients and two were dead on arrival. A worker at another hospital treating attack patients said it had received 49 patients and around five bodies. Ten of the patients were in critical condition, the source added, and almost 20 had been admitted to the burns unit.
The Taliban say they have secured the country since taking power in August and largely eliminated Islamic State’s local offshoot, but international officials and analysts say the risk of a resurgence in militancy remains.
Many of the attacks have targeted the Shi’ite minority, however Sunni mosques have also been attacked.
Bombs exploded aboard two passenger vans carrying Shi’ite Muslims in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Thursday, killing at least nine people. Last Friday, a blast tore through a Sunni mosque during Friday prayers in the city of Kunduz, killing 33.
Africa Today News, New York