At least 11 people were killed in a series of separate blasts that hit a mosque in Kabul and vehicles in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
A series of blasts in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif have killed nine people, while a blast at a mosque in the capital Kabul has killed at least two worshipers, officials said.
A bomb exploded at a mosque in the capital Kabul late Wednesday, killing at least two people and injuring ten others, the interior ministry said.
Kabul’s emergency hospital tweeted that five people were killed and 22 others injured in the blast at the mosque.
Al Jazeera has not been able to independently verify the death toll.
Several ambulances rushed to the mosque in Kabul to transport victims of the blast, witnesses said.
According to Khalid Zadran, a spokesman for the Taliban police in Kabul, there were no further details on the blast that hit the Hazrat Zakaria Mosque in the city’s Central Police District 4.
“The blast happened while people were in the mosque for evening prayers,” Zadran said, adding that they were awaiting an update.
(Al Jazeera)
According to Mohammad Asif Waziri, a Taliban-appointed spokesman in Balkh province, minibuses were attacked in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and explosive devices were planted in the vehicles. He said the blasts killed nine people and injured 15.
“The bombs were placed in three minibuses in different parts of the city,” Waziri said, adding that 15 other people were injured.
IS takes responsibility
ISIL (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the Mazar-e-Sharif attacks in a message published on the group’s Aamaq news outlet.
There was no claim of responsibility for the Kabul mosque explosion, but it also bore the handwriting of a regional offshoot of the ISIL group known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K).
The number of bombings has fallen across the country since the Taliban seized power in August last year, but several cities have been rocked by bombings during the holy month of Ramadan.
Dozens of civilians were killed in what were mainly sectarian attacks during Ramadan – some claimed by the ISKP.
The ISKP, which has been operating in Afghanistan since 2014, is considered the greatest security challenge for the country’s Taliban rulers.
After taking over, the Taliban launched a full-scale crackdown on the ISKP headquarters in eastern Afghanistan.