Dozens of casualties from blast at Shiite mosque in Afghanistan

By AFP 21 April 2022, 2:23 pm

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A Taliban fighter stands guard along a road in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on February 28, 2022. (Javed Tanveer/AFP)

A blast at a mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif city in Afghanistan causes dozens of casualties, a Taliban official says, the second attack against a Shiite target in three days.

“There are at least 25 casualties,” Zabihullah Noorani, head of Balkh province’s information and culture department, tells AFP.

Grisly images of victims being carried to the hospital from the Seh Dokan mosque, which was littered with broken glass, are posted on social media networks.

Afghanistan’s Shiite Hazara community, which makes up between 10 and 20 percent of the country’s 38 million people, has long been the target of attacks — some blamed on the Taliban and others on the Islamic State group.