KABUL: A bomb blast in a mosque in western Kabul during Friday prayers killed more than 5o people, media reports said, however, Afghan officials confiremd only 10 casualties.
Bismillah Habib, the deputy spokesman for the interior ministry, said the blast had hit the Khalifa Sahib Mosque in western Kabul at around 2 pm local time.
One man, who was inside the mosque at the time, told Reuters a huge blast tore through the building during prayers, the explosion burning his feet and hands.
Mohammad Sabir, a resident in the area, said he had seen people being loaded into ambulances after the explosion.
“The blast was very loud, I thought my eardrums were cracked,” he said.
A nurse at a nearby hospital, who declined to be named, said they had received several injured people in critical condition from the attack.
Scores of Afghan civilians have been killed in recent weeks in blasts, some of which have been claimed by Daesh.
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers say they have secured the country since taking power in August and largely eliminated Daesh’s local offshoot, but international officials and analysts say the risk of a resurgence in militancy remains.
Many of the attacks have targeted the Shias, however, Sunni mosques have also been attacked.
Bombs exploded aboard two passenger vans carrying Shia Muslims in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Thursday, killing at least nine people. Last Friday, a blast tore through a Sunni mosque during Friday prayers in the city of Kunduz, killing 33 people.
