2 suicide bombers kill 63 at mosques

Attacks in Kabul and Ghor province hit Shiites, Sunnis.

SuiKABUL, AFGHANISTAN — cide bombers struck two mosques in Afghanistan during Friday prayers, a Shi- ite mosque in Kabul and a Sunni mosque in western Ghor province, killing at least 63 people at the end of a par- ticularly deadly week for the troubled nation.

The Afghan president issued a statement con- demning both attacks and saying that country’s secu- rity forces would step up the fight to “eliminate the terrorists who target Afghans of all religions and tribes.”

In the attack in Kabul, a suicide bomber walked into the Imam Zaman Mosque, a Shiite mosque in the west- ern Dashte-e-Barchi neigh- borhood where he detonated his explosives vest, killing 30 and wounding 45, said Maj. Gen. Alimast Momand at the Interior Ministry.

The suicide bombing in Ghor province struck a Sunni mosque, also during Friday prayers and killed 33 people, including a warlord who was apparently the target of the attack, said Mohammad Iqbal Nizami, the spokesman for the provincial chief of police.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for either attack, the latest in a devastating week that saw Taliban attacks kill scores across the country.

In the Kabul attack, eyewitness Ali Mohammad said the mosque was packed with worshippers, both men and women praying at the height of the Muslim week.

The explosion was so strong that it shattered win- dows on nearby buildings, he said.

Local resid e nts who rushed to the scene to help the victims were overcome with anger and started chanting, “Death to ISIS” — a reference to the Islamic State group which has staged similar attacks on Shiite mosques in recent months.

Abdul Hussain Hussainzada, a Shiite community leader, said they are sure that Afghanistan’s IS affiliate was behind the attack. “Our community is very worried,” Hussainzada told The Associated Press.

Dasht-e-Barchi is a sprawling neighborhood in the west of Kabul where the majority of people are ethnic Hazaras, who are mostly Shiite Muslims, a minority in Afghanistan, which is a Sunni-majority nation.

As attacks targeting Shiites have increased in Kabul, residents of this area have grown increasingly afraid. Most schools have additional armed guards from among the local population.

The so-called Islamic State in Afghanistan has taken responsibility for most of the attacks targeting Shiites, whom the Sunni extremist group considers to be apostates.

Earlier this year, following an attack claimed by IS on the Iraqi Embassy in Kabul, the militant group effectively declared war on Afghanistan’s Shiites, saying they would be the target of future attacks.

It has been a brutal week in Afghanistan, with more than 70 killed, mostly policemen and Afghan soldiers but also civilians as militant attacks have surged.

The Taliban have taken responsibility for the earlier assaults this week that struck on security installations in the east and west of the country.