At least 16 people were killed after a blast tore through a mosque in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul and three blasts ripped through three minibuses northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Wednesday.
A spokesman for Kabul’s commander said at least two people were injured in the blast on a mosque in Kabul. Emergency hospital said in a tweet it had received five bodies from the blast and more than a dozen wounded patients, reported Reuters.
A Taliban official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said explosives had been placed inside the mosque’s pulpit and at least 11 people were dead.
Three blasts in Mazar-i-Sharif killed at least nine and injured 15, Mohammad Asif Wazeri, a spokesman for Balkh province’s commander told Reuters, adding the attacks targeted members of Shia community, who are a religious minority in Afghanistan.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the attacks.
“The bombs were placed on three minibuses in different districts of the city,” Balkh provincial police spokesman Asif Waziri told news agency AFP, adding that 15 other people were wounded.
Dozens of civilians were killed in Kabul and other cities during Ramzan that ended on April 30 in Afghanistan in the primarily sectarian attacks – some claimed by the Islamic State group.
On April 29, at least 10 people were killed in a Sunni mosque in Kabul in an attack that appeared to have targeted members of the minority Sufi community who were performing rituals.
On April 21, a bomb at a Shiite mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif had killed at least 12 worshippers and wounded scores more.
The deadliest attack during Ramadan was in the northern city of Kunduz when a bomb tore through a mosque also targeting Sufi worshippers on April 22.
At least 33 people were killed in that blast and scores more were wounded.
(With inputs from Reuters and AFP)
