Blasts in Afghanistan Mosque Kill at Least 62, Wound More Than 100

Reuters
By Reuters
October 18, 2019World News
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**Warning: This video may be disturbing to some viewers.

Blasts in a mosque in eastern Afghanistan during the Friday, Oct. 18 prayers killed at least 62 men who had gathered for worship, local officials said.

Attaullah Khogyani, a spokesman for Nangarhar province’s governor, said there were multiple blasts from explosives placed inside the mosque in the Jawdara area of Haska Mena district.

Sohrab Qaderi, a member of the provincial council in Nangarhar, while expecting a rise in the number of casualties, said that more than 100 others had been wounded.

Malik Mohammadi Gul Shinwari, a tribal elder from the area, said that the mosque had completely collapsed. The roof of the mosque had completely fallen in.

Afghanistan blast 3
Men carry an injured person to a hospital after a bomb blast at a mosque, in Jalalabad, Afghanistan on Oct. 18, 2019. (Parwiz/Reuters)

“It was a heartbreaking scene I witnessed with my eyes,” Shinwari said, adding that 32 bodies and scores of injured have been transported from the blast site.

Tezab Khan, a member of the local police who was on duty in the area, said: “I could hear the Mullah who was preaching and suddenly his voice was silenced with a boom,”

“When I arrived on the scene, people were trying to bring out the bodies and injured who were stuck under the fallen roof.”

The Jawdara area is controlled by the Afghan security forces.

No terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the blasts so far.

Afghanistan blast 2
Men carry an injured person to a hospital after a bomb blast at a mosque, in Jalalabad, Afghanistan on Oct. 18, 2019. (Parwiz/Reuters)

The Taliban and the ISIS terrorist group are actively operating in parts of Nangarhar that share a border with Pakistan in the east.

A United Nations report on civilian casualties recorded 4,313 civilians killed and wounded in the past three months.

By Abdul Qadir Sediqi, Ahmad Sultan and Rafiq Sherzad

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