KABUL, BEIRUT: Daesh said it carried out a gun and bomb attack on a mosque in Kabul on Friday that killed dozens of people, including children.
"The martyrdom-seeking brother Abu Ammar Al-Turkmani ... succeeded in immersing himself with an explosive vest in a temple of the polytheists," Daesh said in a message on Telegram. "He detonated his vest among the crowd."
The attack, which was one of two targeting mosques in Afghanistan on Friday, capped one of the country's bloodiest weeks in recent memory, with more than 197 people killed.
Suicide bombers attacked two mosques in Afghanistan on Friday, killing at least 89 people including children, officials and witnesses said.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned both attacks and said that the country’s security forces would step up the fight to “eliminate the terrorists who target Afghans of all religions and tribes.”
First attack
At least 56 people died in the blast at the Imam Zaman mosque in the city’s western Dasht-e-Barchi district, interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said.
Second attack
Separately, a suicide bombing killed at least 33 people at a mosque in central Ghor province, a police spokesman said.
The attack appeared to target a local leader from the Jamiat political party, according to a statement from Balkh provincial governor Atta Mohammad Noor, a leading figure in Jamiat.
In his statement, Ghani said the day’s attacks show that “the terrorists have once again staged bloody attacks but they will not achieve their evil purposes and sow discord among the Afghans.”
District governor Mohsen Danishyar confirmed to AFP that a senior local police commander, who is believed to have been the target of the attack in Dolaina district, was among the dead.
Recent attacks
The last attack on a mosque in Kabul happened on September 29. Six people were killed when a suicide bomber posing as a shepherd blew himself up near Hussainia mosque, one of the biggest centres in the city, as worshippers gathered for Friday prayers.
An attack on another mosque in the city on August 25 killed 28 people and wounded around 50 others.
Four attackers who set off explosions and fired gunshots laid siege to the mosque in the north of the capital for four hours as dozens of men, women and children had gathered for Friday prayers.
