At least 18 folks, together with a distinguished cleric near the Taliban, have been killed in an explosion at a crowded mosque in western Afghanistan on Friday, Taliban officers and an area physician mentioned. At least 21 folks have been injured.
The courtyard of the mosque that went by way of the explosion within the metropolis of Herat was lined with corpses, the bottom lined in blood, proven within the video from the scene. The males shouted, “God is great,” in shock and awe.
The bomb exploded throughout Friday afternoon prayers, when mosques have been filled with worshippers.
Footage of bomb blasts inside Herat Mosque. #afghanistan pic.twitter.com/zo4GRECuti
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Among the lifeless was Mujeeb-ul Rehman Ansari, a distinguished cleric recognized all through Afghanistan for his criticism of the nation’s Western-backed governments over the previous twenty years. Ansari was seen as near the Taliban, which had gained management of Afghanistan a 12 months in the past as international forces withdrew.
The Taliban’s chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed his demise.
Just earlier than the bombing, Ansari was assembly in one other a part of the town with the deputy prime minister of the Taliban authorities, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was on a go to to Herat. An aide of Baradar mentioned in a tweet mourning the cleric that he had arrived for the afternoon prayers on the mosque from the assembly.
Mohamed Dawood Mohammadi, an official on the Herat Ambulance Center, mentioned the ambulance carried 18 our bodies and 21 injured from the blast to hospitals in Herat.
Responsibility for Friday’s blast was not instantly claimed.
Last month, a bombing at a mosque within the capital Kabul focused and killed a pro-Taliban cleric in an assault claimed by the Islamic State group. IS has launched a bloody marketing campaign of assaults on Taliban targets and minority teams, particularly Shiites, whom extremist Sunni IS views as heretics.
It has typically carried out suicide assaults in mosques throughout Friday prayers.
Herat’s Gujargah mosque, the place Ansari has lengthy been a preacher, attracts followers of Sunni Islam, the dominant stream in Afghanistan adopted by the Taliban.
For years, Ansari was a thorn within the aspect of Afghanistan’s pro-Western authorities. In her sermon in Gujargah, she urged a lot of her supporters to protest towards the governments and marketing campaign towards girls’s rights.
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
