Iran voices concern over escalation of violence in Afghanistan
Iran’s UN envoy: Daesh presence has intensified terrorism
Iran’s Foreign Ministry denounced a terrorist attack targeting a mosque in Kunduz, Afghanistan, voicing concern over the escalation of violence in the neighboring country.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh on Friday pointed to a series of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan over the past days and described the escalation of violence as a source of deep concern, Tasnim News Agency reported.
“The attack on the Sunni mosque in Kunduz Province, which followed an (Thursday’s) attack on a Shia mosque in Mazar-i-sharif, clearly shows the evil goals of the terrorists serving as mercenaries for foreigners, who are seeking to create a civil war in Afghanistan,” he added, according to the Foreign Ministry’s website.
An explosion struck the Mawlavi Sekandar mosque north of Kunduz city during Friday prayers, killing over 30 people.
It came a day after a bomb attack at a mosque in the northern city of Mazar-i-sharif claimed the lives of at least 31 worshippers and left more than 80 others injured, in the second major attack on the Shia Hazara community in Afghanistan in a week, Press TV wrote.
Daesh terrorists claimed responsibility for the attack, according to a statement on the group’s Telegram channel, which added that the attack on the Mazar-i-sharif mosque was carried out using a remotely detonated booby-trapped bag when the building was packed with
worshippers.
On Tuesday, two blasts outside a school in a Hazara community neighborhood of Kabul killed at least six people and wounded more than two dozen others.
The Hazara community, the poorest of the country’s ethnic
groups, accounts for about 22 percent of Afghanistan’s population. Its members have been targeted in several large-scale kidnappings and killings across Afghanistan in the past.
Iran’s Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Zahra Ershadi
said that Daesh’s presence in Afghanistan has intensified terrorist attacks in the country, according to IRNA.
Speaking at the high-level briefing on the National Strategy and Action Plan of Tajikistan on Countering Terrorism and Extremism 2021-2025 on Friday, Ershadi said that Iran condemns the recent terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and is deeply concerned about such sorrowful incidents, calling on Afghan authorities to quickly bring the perpetrators to justice.
She highlighted the role of foreign actors in transferring the Daesh terrorists from Iraq and Syria to Afghanistan, as a cause of intensification of security situation in the region.
Since the Taliban’s takeover of the country, several attacks are reported each week throughout Afghanistan, including some claimed by Daesh.
The Taliban, who had previously ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, took power again on August 15, 2021 as the US was in the middle of a chaotic troop withdrawal. The group announced the formation of a caretaker government on September 7. No country has yet recognized their rule.