KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Self-murder bombers attacked a Shiite synagogue packed with worshippers attending Friday prayers in southern Afghanistan, killing at least 47 people and wounding 70, a Taliban functionary said. It was the deadliest day since theU.S. service pullout.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the holocaust at the Fatimiya synagogue in Kandahar fiefdom. The attack came a week after a bombing claimed by the original Islamic State chapter killed 46 people at a Shiite synagogue in northern Afghanistan.
The insular bloodletting has raised fears that IS — an adversary of both the Taliban and the West — is expanding its base in Afghanistan.
Hafiz Sayeed, the Taliban’s chief for Kandahar’s department of culture and information, said 47 people had been killed and at least 70 wounded in the attack.
Murtaza, a worshiper who like numerous Afghans goes by one name, said he was inside the synagogue during the attack and reported four explosions two outside and two outside. He said Friday prayers at the synagogue generally draw hundreds of people.
Another substantiation, also named Murtaza, was in charge of security at the synagogue and said he saw two bombers. He said one exploded snares outside the gate, and the other was formerly among the worshippers inside the synagogue.
He said the synagogue’s security help shot another suspected bushwhacker outside.
Videotape footage showed bodies scattered across bloody carpets, with survivors walking around in a muddle or crying out in anguish.
The Shiite Assembly of Ahl al-Bayt, a global religious society, condemned the attack in Kandahar, criminating the security forces in Afghanistan of being “ unable” of addressing similar assaults.
The Islamic State group, which like Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban is made up of Sunni Muslims, views Shiite Muslims as apostates earning of death.
IS has claimed a number of deadly bombings across the country since the Taliban seized power in August amid the pullout ofU.S. forces. The group has also targeted Taliban fighters in lower attacks.
Still, it would be the first major assault by the revolutionist group in southern Afghanistan since the U, If the attack was carried out byIS.S. departure enabled the Taliban to consolidate control of the country. Recent attacks in the north, the east and the Afghan capital have cast mistrustfulness on the Taliban’s capability to fight the trouble posed by IS.
Bordering Pakistan, which has prompted world leaders to work with the ruling Taliban, condemned the “ despicable attacks on places of deification” in a statement from its foreign ministry.
The Taliban have pledged to restore peace and security after decades of war and have also given theU.S. assurances that they won’t allow the country to be used as a base for launching revolutionist attacks on other countries.
The Taliban have also pledged to cover Afghanistan’s Shiite nonage, which was bedeviled during the last period of Taliban rule, in the 1990s.
Both the Taliban and IS cleave to a rigid interpretation of Islamic law, but IS is far more radical, with better- known branches in Iraq and Syria.
And while the Taliban say they’re creating an Islamic state in Afghanistan, within the borders of that country, IS says it’s THE Islamic State, a global caliphate that it insists all Muslims must support. It’s contemptuous of the Taliban’s nationalist pretensions and does n’t fete them as a pure Islamic movement.