The ISIS terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack near a mosque in the western Afghan city of Herat that killed a prominent Taliban cleric.
And the Afghan police said today, Friday, that the explosion occurred in the courtyard of the mosque.
In addition, Herat police spokesman Mahmoud Rasuli stated that “Mujibur Rahman Ansari, several of his bodyguards and civilians were killed on their way to the mosque.”
An Afghan official said at least 18 people were killed and 21 injured in an explosion that destroyed an overcrowded mosque in the western city of Herat. Mohammad Daoud Mohammadi, an official at the Herat Ambulance Center, added that ambulances delivered 18 dead and 21 injured to the city’s hospitals on Friday.
“They will be punished”
For his part, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, in a tweet on Twitter, expressed his “deepest condolences” over Ansari’s killing and said his attackers would be punished.
Mujibur Rahman Ansari vigorously defended the Taliban at a large gathering of thousands of scholars and sheikhs organized by the movement in late June and denounced any opposition to his rule.
suicide attack
Two weeks ago, a massive explosion took place at a mosque, also west of the capital Kabul, killing 21 people and injuring 33.
The Kabul mosque attack comes a week after a Taliban cleric and his brother were killed in a suicide bombing at a Koran study school in Kabul that ISIS claimed responsibility for.
The attacks didn’t stop.
The number of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan has decreased since the Taliban came to power a year ago, but the attacks have not stopped. There have been several attacks in the past month, and in late April, during the month of Ramadan, and also in late May, the country witnessed a series of booby-trap attacks that killed dozens of people.
Most of them have been taken over by ISIS, which mainly targets the religious minorities of Afghan Shiites, Sufis and Sikhs, apart from the Taliban.
