Kabul Mosque Blast: At Least Seven Martyred, 41 Injured

By Staff, Agencies

At least seven people have lost their lives and 41 others injured in a blast in the capital city of Kabul, just weeks after a series of bombings in the war-torn country, health officials said.

According to officials at Italian-NGO-run Emergency Hospital near the site of the explosion in the Afghan capital, the explosion went off near a mosque in Wazir Akbar Khan district in central Kabul as people were streaming out from Friday prayers.

“After prayers, when people wanted to come out from the mosque, a blast went off,” said Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran, adding that “all casualties are civilians, the exact number is not clear yet.”

Interior ministry spokesman Abdul Nafy Takor told AFP that at least seven people had been killed and 41 others were wounded, including children.

“The explosion occurred when worshippers were heading home,” Takor said, adding that the explosives were placed in a car.

Emergency Hospital said it had received 14 people from the blast, four of whom arrived dead.

The blast was caused by an IED bomb blast, which released column of black smoke into the sky and shots rang out several minutes after the blast in the city’s diplomatic quarter, Press TV reported.

There has been no claim of responsibility for the bombings so far.

The blast comes on the heels of a deadly explosion in a mosque in the northern city of Kunduz weeks ago, which killed at least 33 Afghan people, including children, and wounded 43 others.

In another blast outside a mosque in Afghanistan in early September, a pro-Taliban cleric and 17 other civilians were killed.

Dozens of people have lost their lives in a series of terrorist attacks across the country over the past few weeks.

Afghanistan has been in turmoil since the Taliban, who had previously ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, took power again on August 15 last year amid a chaotic US troop withdrawal from the war-torn country.

Since then, the country has been the scene of recurrent terrorist attacks, some of which have been claimed by the Daesh [Arabic for ‘ISIS/ISIL’] terrorist group.