During a memorial service for the Taliban regional deputy governor who was killed this week in an attack by the Islamic State group, a bomb blasted through a mosque in Afghanistan’s northeastern Badakhshan province on Thursday.
The Taliban-led Afghan interior ministry tweeted that at least 11 worshippers had been killed and over 30 others were injured in the blast in Faizabad, the province capital. A former Taliban police chief of the adjoining northern Baghlan province was also killed, Moazuddin Ahmadi, the head of the region information office, said VOA by phone.
Many people inside the crowded mosque were injured by the tremendous blast, and witnesses feared the death toll may rise dramatically.
According to TOLO news, a prominent Afghan news outlet, at least 15 people were killed and almost 50 others were injured, all of whom were taken to the Faizabad district hospital.
On Tuesday, Molvi Nisar Ahmad Ahmadi, the deputy governor of Badakhshan, was on his way to work in Faizabad when a suicide bomber drove into the back of his car. Ahmadi and his driver were both murdered, and 10 others were wounded, in the resulting explosion.
Islamic State’s Afghan offshoot, Islamic State Khorasan, took credit for the vehicle bombing, according to the terror organization. This hilly region of Afghanistan has borders with China, Tajikistan, and Pakistan.
Since the hardline group retook control of Afghanistan over two years ago, several key Taliban officials have been murdered in assaults claimed by IS Khorasan.
The Taliban police head of Badakhshan was murdered in a vehicle bombing in December, an attack that was claimed by IS Khorasan.
Mohammad Dawood Muzammil, governor of the northern Balkh province, was killed in March by a suicide bomber. IS Khorasan claimed responsibility for the assassination of a top Taliban official.
The Taliban are staunch foes of IS Khorasan and have regularly launched operations against the terror group’s bases in Afghanistan, resulting in the deaths of several high-ranking members of the organization.
From the province of Nangarhar in the country’s east, which borders Pakistan, Islamic State first began its activities in the war-torn South Asian country in 2015. Since then, it has spread the bloodshed over the rest of Afghanistan.
