Dozens of Afghan troops killed in mosque attack at army base
kabul — An explosion ripped through a mosque inside an Afghan army base in the country’s volatile eastern Khost province as Friday prayers were drawing to a close, killing 27 soldiers and wounding 57, the military said.
The blast may have been set off by a suicide bomber or a remotely detonated bomb but nothing was officially confirmed and details were sketchy. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the explosion.
It was the latest in a relentless, near-daily onslaughts in Afghanistan, where the Taleban regularly target Afghan military and police forces throughout the country.
“There were soldiers lying everywhere and the smoke was so thick, it was difficult to see,” said Abdullah, a spokesman at the base. The dead
and wounded were rushed to a clinic within the army base, while the more seriously wounded were taken to a nearby hospital.
Sakhi Sardar, head of the hospital in Khost said most of the wounded were being treated for devastating shrapnel wounds.
The explosion came just days after a suicide bomber killed 55 religious
scholars gathered in the Afghan capital, Kabul, to celebrate the holiday marking the birth of Holy Prophet (peace be upon him). The Taleban denied involvement in that bombing, which also wounded 94 people.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan on Friday, hundreds of protesters blocked roads in northern Parwan province to denounce the death of three people who they say were civilians, killed in an operation against the Taleban earlier on Friday.
The protesters said the operation by Afghan special forces involved a Nato air strike in the Jebul Siraj district that killed the three.
However, Nato spokeswoman Debra Richardson said no Nato or American activity took place in Parwan in the past three days. The provincial governor’s spokeswoman, Wahida Sakhar, said Parwan officials were negotiating with the protesters and promised an investigation into the incident.
Afghan special forces called in a Nato air strike during an operation Wednesday against the Taleban in eastern Logar province. Ten people died but it’s unclear how many were civilians.