20 Worshippers Killed, Dozens Wounded as Twin Blasts Rock Mosque in Afghanistan - Reports

The UN Security Council earlier this week discussed the threats to the Asian region posed by Daesh*–Khorasan terrorists operating in Afghanistan, though the Taliban* government earlier said Daesh threat in the country is being exagerated.

Two massive explosions hit a mosque in Afghanistan's Herat on Friday, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens of others.

A source in the province told Sputnik that seven people had lost their lives.

Screams of the wounded can be heard in a video recorded by locals on the spot.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Mawlawi Mujib Rahman Ansari, the cleric who led the prayers, was killed in what he described as a cowardly attack carried out by the "enemies of religion."

Ansari, an influential Sunni, appeared in a program with Taliban's Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in the city hours before he went to the Guzargah mosque for Friday prayer when the twin blasts took place. Khamaa Press reported that the slain cleric was a hardliner who advocated for beheading rebels, stoning adulterers and shopping off hands of thieves. Mujahid praised him as a courageous religious scholar.

Family members, relatives and friends of the victims gathering outside of the hospital. pic.twitter.com/fkHYqTG0HZ

— BILAL SARWARY (@bsarwary) September 2, 2022

Local media reported dozens of dead bodies lying inside the mosque, where hundreds of people went to attend the Friday prayers.

"We have no space left in the morgue in the hospital. We have very few doctors. We don't have enough blood. We have received 200 wounded," medical sources told a senior journalist Bilal Sarwary.

Taliban has been facing challenges from Daesh as the latter has launched several strikes of late. On Tuesday, Taliban fighters killed four Daesh members in a clash in Herat.

*Daesh (also known as IS/ISIS) is a terrorist organization banned in Russia

*Taliban is under UN sanctions over terrorist activities