Bombing outside Kabuls main mosque leaves at least 2 dead Taliban says

A bombing outside Kabul’s main mosque killed at least two Afghan civilians and left others wounded, the Taliban says.

The explosion, at Eid Gah Mosque, is the first major attack in the city since the Islamic State targeted Kabul airport in August while thousands attempted to escape the country as it fell to the Taliban.

Qari Muhammad Saeed Khosti, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, confirmed the death toll to The Washington Post via telephone but cautioned that the number could rise. “I don’t have an exact number of casualties,” Khosti said. “Our investigations are underway."

A hospital in Kabul said in a tweet that it took in four wounded in Sunday’s blast.

Bilal Karimi, the Taliban’s deputy spokesman, told The Post that “an unfortunate blast” occurred outside the gate of the mosque on the Kabul-Logar highway.

“We have launched our investigations to know the number of casualties and nature of the blast,” Karimi said, noting that no Taliban fighters were among the victims, whom he described as “common people.”

“We are investigating as to how it happened and who did it,” he continued.

Zabihullah Mujahid, acting deputy information minister and a key spokesman, confirmed that a blast had occurred at the mosque, where people had gathered at a memorial to honor his mother.

Mujahid did not share more details of how many people were killed or wounded.

There has been no official claim of responsibility for the attack.

The blasts were mostly around the city of Jalalabad, capital of the eastern province of Nangahar and known as a stronghold for the Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIS-K).

While both are Islamist groups, ISIS-K accuses the Taliban of not being extreme enough.

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