A Taliban government spokesman said the death toll from a mosque explosion in Kunduz, Afghanistan, had risen to 33, with 43 injured.
Earlier, an official in the Afghan province of Kunduz said on Friday that an explosion had occurred at a mosque in the northern city of Kunduz, killing and injuring at least 20 people. The official told Reuters that the explosion took place in a Sunni mosque.
The Taliban have arrested a suspected ISIS member accused of bombing a Shia mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif that killed at least 12 people and injured 58 others.
And ISIS claimed responsibility for the bombing of the Seh Dokan mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif in the country’s north on Thursday.
Asif Waziri, a police spokesman for the Afghan Balkh province, said Abdul Hamid Sangriar, who was arrested, was a key member of ISIS. He continued, “He was the mastermind behind the attack on the mosque.”
The Afghan Interior Ministry also announced the arrest of Sangriar, who has Afghan citizenship.
Vaziri said: “In the past, he played a key role in several attacks and was able to escape several times, but this time we stopped him in a special operation.”
ISIS also said it carried out another attack on Thursday in the city of Kunduz, which detonated an explosive device, killing four people and injuring 18.
Meanwhile, the Taliban authorities have stepped up security at the main mosques in Kabul, where worshipers offer Friday prayers during the month of Ramadan.
The Taliban carried out thorough searches of hundreds of believers who arrived at the Abdul Rahman mosque in Kabul.
The security situation in Afghanistan has improved significantly since the Taliban regained power in August following the withdrawal of US troops from the country after a 20-year war. However, attacks continue to occur in the country, sometimes claimed by ISIS-Khorasan Province.
In the past, the Taliban themselves have attacked Hazara Afghan Shiites, who make up 10 to 20 percent of Afghanistan’s population of about forty million.
