Death toll in Afghan mosque bombing rises to 33

A Taliban official says a bombing at a mosque and religious school in northern Afghanan on Friday killed at least 33 people, including students of a religious school.
Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted news of the devastating bombing in the town of Imam Saheb, in Kunduz Province, saying it also wounded another 43 people, many of them students.

۱/۲- په خواشینۍ سره مو خبر تر لاسه کړ چې نن مازدیګر دکندز امام صاحب ولسوالۍ په یوه مسجد کې چاودنه شوې.۳۳ ولسي خلک چې ماشومان هم پکې دي شهیدان او ۴۳ تنه نور ټپیان شوي دي.موږ دغه جنایت غندو، شهیدانو ته جنت الفردوس او ټپیانو ته عاجله شفا غواړو او له غم ځپلو سره ژوره خواخوږي ښیو.
— Zabihullah (..ذبـــــیح الله م ) (@Zabehulah_M33) April 22, 2022
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No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but Afghanan’s Islamic State affiliate on Thursday claimed a series of bombings, the worst of which was an attack on a Shiite mosque in northern Mazar-e-Sharif that killed at least 10 Shiite Muslim worshippers and wounded scores more.
An Islamic State affiliate on Friday claimed a series of bombings a day earlier that targeted Afghanan’s minority Shiite Muslims, while Pakan issued a warning of IS threats in its eastern Punjab province.

It comes as another bomb exploded late Friday at a religious school in northern Kunduz province in the border town of Imam Saheb, killing two students. Another six students were wounded, said Obaidullah, a provincial police spokesman who like many Afghans uses just one name. No one has yet claimed Friday’s bombing.
The deadliest of the three bombings on Thursday exploded inside a Shite mosque in northern Mazar-e-Sharif. Hospital officials say at least 12 people were killed and as many as 40 were hurt.
Earlier Thursday, a roadside bomb exploded near a boys school in the Afghan capital of Kabul, injuring two children in the city’s predominately Shiite neighborhood of Dasht-e-Barchi. A third bomb in northern Kunduz injured 11 mechanics working for the country’s Taliban rulers.
Since sweeping to power last August, the Taliban have been battling the upstart Islamic State affiliate known as Islamic State in Khorasan Province or IS-K which is proving to be an intractable security challenge for Afghanan’s religiously driven government. Last November the Taliban’s intelligence unit carried out sweeping attacks on suspected IS-K hideouts in eastern Nangarhar province.
In a statement Friday, the IS-K said the explosive devise that devastated Mazar-e-Sharif’s Sai Doken mosque was hidden in a bag left inside among scores of worshippers. As they knelt in prayer, it exploded.
“When the mosque was filled with prayers, the explosives were detonated remotely,“ the IS statement said, claiming that 100 people were injured. The Taliban say they have arrested a former IS-K leader in northern Balkh province, of which Mazar-e-Sharif is the capital. Zabihullah Noorani, information and culture department chief in Balkh province, said Abdul Hamid Sangaryar was arrested in connection with Thursday’s mosque attack.
The IS-K had been relatively inactive in Afghanan since last November, but in recent weeks have stepped up its attacks in Afghanan and in neighboring Pakan, taking aim at Shiite Muslim communities reviled Sunni radicals.
Earlier this month two bombs exploded in Kabul’s Shiite neighborhood of Dasht-e-Barchi, killing at least seven students and wounding several others. The IS-K established its headquarters in eastern Afghanan in 2014 and have been blamed for some of the worst attacks in Afghanan, including a vicious assault on a maternity hospital and at a school that killed more than 80 girls in 2021, months before the Taliban took power.
The IS-K also took responsibility for a brutal bombing outside the Kabul International Airport in August 2021 that killed more than 160 Afghans who had been pushing to enter the airport to flee the country. Thirteen U.S. military personnel also were killed as they oversaw America’s final withdrawal and the end of its 20-year war in Afghanan.
In recent months, the IS-K has also stepped up attacks in neighboring Pakan, targeting a Shiite mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar in March. More than 65 worshippers were killed. The upstart affiliate has also claimed several deadly attacks against Pakan’s military .
In Pakan’s central Punjab city of Faisalabad, the local police on Thursday issued a threat warning, saying “it has been learned that IS-Khas planned to carry out terror activities in Faisalabad,“ advising people to “exercise extreme vigilance.” The police warning did not elaborate.
Meanwhile late on Thursday a Pakani soldier was killed in southwestern Baluchan province after militants raided a security outpost. No one claimed responsibility. The area has been targeted both IS-K as well as the violent Pakani Taliban militants known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakan (TTP) also headquartered in neighboring Afghanan.
The safe havens of militant groups in Afghanan has raised concerns for Pakan which earlier this month carried out air strikes inside Pakan, killing at least 20 children, according to the United Nations education fund (UNICEF).
 
Pakan has not confirmed the strikes but has warned Afghanan’s Taliban to stop its territory being used to attack across the border into Pakan.
In separate incidents, five children were killed Friday in northern Afghanan’s Faryab Province while playing with unexploded ordnance. In one incident, three brothers died when they found an unexploded device and tried to dismantle it. In a second incident in another village, two children, ages 7 and 8, were killed playing with a device, said Shamsullah Mohammadi, Faryab provincial information and culture head.
After more than four decades of war, that included two invasions _ one the former Soviet Union and one the U.S.-led coalition _ Afghanan is one of the heaviest mined countries in the world and is littered with unexploded ordnance.