KABUL: A powerful explosion killed more than 50 worshippers after prayers at a Kabul mosque on Friday (Apr 29), its leader said, the latest in a series of attacks on civilian targets in Afghanistan during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The blast hit the Khalifa Sahib Mosque in the west of the capital in the early afternoon, said Besmullah Habib, deputy spokesman for the interior ministry, who said that the official confirmed death toll was 10.
The attack came as worshippers at the Sunni mosque 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.
Sayed Fazil Agha, the head of the mosque, said that 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 Reuters, adding that his nephews were among the dead. "I myself survived, but lost my beloved ones."
Resident Mohammad Sabir said that 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 said that hospitals had received 66 dead bodies and 78 wounded people so far.
The United States and the United Nations' mission to Afghanistan condemned the attack, with the latter saying that it was part of an uptick in violence in recent weeks targeting minorities and adding that at least two UN 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 UN secretary-general's deputy special representative for Afghanistan.
Emergency Hospital in downtown Kabul said that it was treating 21 patients and two were dead on arrival.
A worker at another hospital treating attack patients said that 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.
A spokesman for the ruling Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, released a statement condemning the blast and saying that the perpetrators would be found and punished.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asi...-more-50-kabul-mosque-its-leader-says-2656646
