At least ten people died and about sixty were injured this Thursday in an attack with explosives in a Shiite mosque in northern Afghanistan, in a new attack this week directed towards this minority in the middle of the holy month of Ramadan.
The explosion took place during midday prayers in a Shiite mosque in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, capital of Balkh province, where according to the initial count, 10 people were killed and 20 others were injured, the provincial director told EFE. of Information and Culture, Molavi Mohammad Norani.
The director of the Abu Ali Sina Regional Hospital, Ghousuddin Anwari, in statements to the local Tolo channel, placed the number of deceased at five and raised the number of injured to 65.
A man injured in a mosque attack in Afghanistan receives medical attention. Photo: AFP
Its about second day this week with major attacks against the Shiite minority in Afghanistan, after several explosions occurred on Tuesday in two educational centers in the Shiite Hazara minority neighborhood of Dashte Barchi, in western Kabul, causing at least 6 deaths and 25 injuries, according to the data official.
Several activists, however, suggest that the number of victims is much higher than that offered by the fundamentalists, without offering a precise balance.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for these attacks, although they are usually claimed by the jihadist group ISISwhich has among its main targets the Shiites, whom it considers apostates.
The ISIS affiliate, operating in Afghanistan since 2014, is considered the biggest security challenge faced by the country’s Taliban rulers. After taking office in August, the Taliban launched a wide-ranging offensive against the group’s headquarters in eastern Afghanistan.
The ISIS affiliate has previously attacked schools, especially in the predominantly Shia neighborhood of Dasht-e-Barchi. In May last year, months before the Taliban took power in Kabul, more than 60 children, mostly girls, died when two bombs exploded in front of their schoolalso in the neighborhood of Dasht-e-Barchi.
a tragic history
Last October, for two consecutive Fridays, the Shiite minority suffered two attacks on mosques in the northern province of Kunduz and in the southern Kandahar.
These suicide attacks caused at least 80 and 60 deaths, and more than a hundred wounded, and the last relevant attack on a mosque occurred on April 6, in which one person lost his life and five others were injured when a individual threw a grenade during prayers at a major Kabul temple.
The Shiite Hazara community experienced one of its worst attacks in the Afghan capital in May last year, when a attack on a girls’ school left 110 deadmostly girls, and 290 injured, according to data from the Hazara Foundation.
Source: EFE