Several people, one of them with his bloody clothes, walk away from the site of the explosion in Kabul. /
The ‘modus operandi’ points to previous attacks committed by the Afghan branch of the Islamic State terrorist organization
At least ten people died this Friday and thirty were injured as a result of an explosion in a mosque in the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, as confirmed by the Afghan Police. The explosion took place in the Khalifa Sahib neighborhood, located in the south of the city, during the traditional Friday prayers.
The initial balance was confirmed by the spokesman for the Kabul Police, Jalil Zadran, in a statement collected by the Afghan television Ariana. All the victims are civilians, he added.
For their part, witnesses to the explosion pointed out that the number of victims could be very high given the large number of hospitalized in the nearby Istiqlal hospital and other centers. According to the Afghan press, and as confirmed later by the United Nations, the roof of the temple has collapsed on several faithful.
Thus, from the Office of the UN Humanitarian Affairs Coordinator for Afghanistan they have recognized that local hospitals are effectively reporting “much higher” numbers of injured and the deceased rise to “dozens”. The Italian NGO Emergency also confirmed on Twitter that it is treating at least twenty affected people in just one of its facilities.
Taliban forces cordoned off the area and have already begun an investigation into the incident, according to a statement from the Ministry of the Interior of the fundamentalist movement collected by Tolo News.
end of ramadan
For his part, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan, Ramiz Alakbarov, called the attack “another painful blow to the people of Afghanistan”, even more so when it occurred on the last Friday of Ramadan.
“It is inconceivable that civilians are indiscriminately attacked while they carry out their daily activities, gather to pray, go to school or the market or march on their way to work,” denounced this United Nations official. He also stressed that international humanitarian law prohibits attacks against the civilian population and infrastructure.
Although the nature of the explosion has not been confirmed for the time being, it coincides with the pattern exhibited in bomb attacks carried out regularly by the Afghan branch of the Islamic State jihadist organization against the country’s mosques.