At least 72 dead in attacks on Afghan mosques: officials

At least 72 people were killed when suicide bombers blew themselves up in two separate mosque attacks in Afghanistan Friday, officials said, capping a bloody week in the war-torn country.

In the first attack, on a Shiite mosque in the Afghan capital Kabul, at least 39 people including women and children were killed and 45 others wounded when a suicide bomber exploded as worshippers gathered for evening prayer.

“Unfortunately this evening a suicide bomber detonated himself among the worshippers inside a mosque in Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood of Kabul city,” Kabul police spokesman Abdul Basir Mujahid told AFP.

Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish confirmed the latest attack toll on Twitter.

“I was in the mosque bathroom when I heard a blast. I rushed inside the mosque and saw all the worshippers covered in blood,” Hussain Ali told AFP.

“Some of the wounded were fleeing. I tried to stop someone to help me help the wounded but everyone was in a panic. It took ambulances and the police about an hour to reach the area.”

Police initially said a gunman entered the Imam Zaman Mosque in a heavily Shiite neighborhood in the west of the city and opened fire on the worshippers there.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the grisly attack but recent assaults on Shiite mosques in Afghanistan have been carried out by Daesh (ISIS) militants.

In the second assault, a suicide bomber detonated himself in a Sunni mosque in the impoverished and remote central province of Ghor, killing at least 33 and wounding 10, Danish said.

A senior local police commander, who is believed to have been the target of the attack in Dolaina district, was among the dead, district Gov. Mohsen Danishyar told AFP.

The attacks cap one of the bloodiest weeks in Afghanistan in recent memory, with more than 120 people killed and hundreds more wounded in four separate Taliban attacks on police and military bases.

In three of the attacks Taliban militants used bomb-laden Humvees stolen from Afghan government forces to blast their way into targets, as militants step up direct attacks on security installations.