Kabul: A large explosion tore through a Shi’ite mosque in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar during Friday prayers, killing at least 37 people and wounding more than 70, officials said, the second massive attack in a week targeting worshippers from the minority sect.A local reporter in Kandahar told Reuters that eyewitnesses had described three suicide attackers, one of whom blew himself up at the entrance to the mosque with the two others detonating their devices inside the building.“The situation is very bad. Mirwais hospital is messaging and calling on young people to give blood,” he said, referring to a local hospital where dead and injured had been taken.
Photographs and mobile phone footage posted by journalists on social media showed many people apparently dead or seriously wounded on the bloody floor of the Imam Bargah mosque.A hospital official gave figures of 37 dead and more than 70 wounded and said the final total could be higher. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Interior ministry spokesman Qari Saeed Khosti of the ruling Taliban movement said authorities were collecting details.
The blast took place just days after an attack claimed by Islamic State militants, which killed scores of Shi’ite worshippers at a mosque in the northern city of Kunduz. The full death toll from that attack has been estimated as high as 80. Sunni Muslim fighters of Islamic State have repeatedly targeted Shi’ites in the past. The Taliban are also strict Sunni Muslims but have pledged to protect all ethnic and sectarian groups since sweeping into power in August as U.S. forces withdrew.AGENCIES