By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
April 22, 2022
An explosion at a mosque and religious school in northern Afghanistan’s Kunduz region during Friday Prayers has killed at least 33 people, a Taliban official said on April 22.
Students of the school are among the dead, said Zabihullah Mujahid on Twitter.
“We condemn this crime…and express our deepest sympathies to the bereaved,” he said.
The blast, which also wounded another 43 people, many of them students, occurred in the town of Imam Saheb in Kunduz Province, he said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but Afghanistan’s Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility for a series of bombings on April 21, the worst of which was an attack on a Shi’ite mosque in northern Mazar-e-Sharif that killed at least 12 worshippers and left 58 people injured.
The blast occurred as people gathered to worship in the mosque, according to eyewitnesses. Shortly after the blast at the mosque there was a large explosion on a road in Kabul. No details were available about the latter explosion.
Recent bombings in Kabul and other Afghan cities have killed dozens of people. Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), which claimed responsibility for the attack at a Shi’ite mosque in Mazar-e-Sharif, also claimed a separate attack on April 21 in Kunduz city that killed four people and wounded 18.
Taliban authorities said earlier on April 22 that they had arrested the “mastermind” of the bombing at the mosque in Mazar-e-Sharif.
With reporting by Reuters and AFP