Kabul: Suicide attack in mosque, 10 people killed

 Children are also among the injured in the explosion at the Siddiqiya Mosque in Khair Khana, a suburb of Kabul.

 Thursday 18 August 2022 8:00

FP) At least 10 people, including a prominent religious leader, were killed and around 30 injured in a suicide attack in a mosque in Khair Khana, a suburb of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, on Wednesday evening.

The explosion took place when prayers were being offered in the mosque. A Taliban security official said the blast targeted prominent religious scholar Maulvi Amir Mohammad Kabuli, who is said to have been killed along with some of his students. According to BBC, during the last three months, three prominent religious figures have been targeted in the Afghan capital, and there have been several killings in other provinces. According to the Associated Press (AP), many children are among the injured in the attack in the Siddiquiya Mosque.

AFP, citing figures released by the Kabul police, said that 21 people have been killed so far in the attack on Wednesday night. Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran told AFP that "the blast was caused by a bomb planted in a mosque," which had previously been reported as a suicide attack. Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul condemned the attack in a tweet.

The Italian non-governmental organization Emergency, which manages a hospital in Kabul, confirmed to AFP that 27 wounded people had arrived at the hospital with either shell or burn marks on their bodies. . The emergency said that there were five children among the injured. In a later tweet, emergency said that one of the injured children was seven years old. Stephanie Souza, Afghanistan's head of emergency operations, told Reuters: "We had two dead bodies and one seriously injured person who died during treatment."

Stephanie said that so far in August, the hospital has treated 80 injured people, who were injured in various incidents.

AP has reported with reference to an eyewitness that "the target of the suicide attack was Mullah Amir Mohammad Kabuli, a resident of Khairkhana." The eyewitness spoke on  No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack and the Taliban administration has not held anyone accountable. For the past few weeks, mosques, madrassas and religious leaders have been targeted in Afghanistan. On August 11, a suicide bomber targeted religious leader Rahimullah Haqqani's seminary, killing him along with his brother, AFP reported.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack. Violence in Afghanistan has declined since the Taliban took control of the country, but ISIS has targeted minorities and the group has so far targeted the Sikh, Shia and Sufi communities in Afghanistan. The Taliban say they have defeated ISIS, but analysts say the group is the main threat to the Taliban.

There is danger. The Taliban killed their Shia commander Reuters reported that the Taliban killed an associate, who was believed to be the Taliban's first commander from the minority Shiite Hazara community. According to Reuters, officials have confirmed the killing of a former Taliban leader from the Shia Hazara community, saying he was an insurgent of Afghanistan's interim government.

According to the Ministry of Defence, 

Maulvi Mehdi was killed by the Taliban in the border area with Iran while he was trying to flee the country. Some time ago, Maulvi Mehdi was appointed as the commander, so it was considered as a sign of change of mentality of Taliban regarding minorities. After the Taliban took control of the country, Mahdi became the center of attention and after the Taliban formed the government, Mahdi was appointed head of the intelligence agency in the Central Province. In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Ministry of Defense has described Mahdi as the "leader of the rebels" in the northern province of Surrey.

Taliban sources told Reuters that Mahdi had defected from the Taliban and staged a coup. According to the Defense Ministry, he was killed in the Afghan province of Herat, which borders Iran. Reuters could not reach any of Mehdi's sources.