Mosque attack kills 20, hurts 50 in Afghan capital

KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber set off a blast at a Shiite mosque Friday as gunmen opened fire and panicked worshippers leapt from windows in the latest attack claimed by the Islamic State against minority Shiite sites.

At least 20 people were killed and another 50 seriously wounded during a siege that lasted more than four hours, an official said.

Scores of worshippers, including women and children, were i nside the mosque in Kabul when at least four assailants wearing police uniforms stormed the compound and later battled security forces that surrounded the site.

Two of the assailants blew themselves up and another two were shot to death by Afghan security forces, police official Mohammed Sadique Muradi said.

The attack is the latest in a spate of strikes against Shiites in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and the Islamic State affiliates are fighting against the government and foreign troops. Sunni extremists view Shiite Islam as a heretical branch of the religion.

The Islamic State’s Afghanistan faction consists of some disaffected Taliban members, and it has been behind attacks that have claimed the lives of several U.S. troops in recent weeks.

President Donald Trump this week announced a revamped strategy for Afghanistan that includes pos- sibly boosting U.S. troop levels

Bashir Bezhen, a security analyst, said the mosque attack was part of an effort to widen sectarian rifts.

“These attacks are quite worrying and dangerous,” he said, “and the aim is to start a conflict this time between the Shiites and Sunnis.”

The Taliban condemned the violence, with a spokesman for the militants, Zabihullah Mujahid, saying the group had nothing to do with Friday’s attack.

President Ashraf Ghani also condemned the violence and said ISIS militants were turning to attacking places of worship because they were losing on the battlefield. He urged Islamic clerics everywhere to condemn the bloodshed.

The death toll of 20 was expected to rise because many of the victims were seriously wounded, said Mohammad Salim Rasouli, chief of Kabul’s hospitals.

Terrified worshippers endured hours of gunfire and explosions during the afternoon before the attackers were killed.

ISIS said in a statement on the website of its Aamaq news agency that it had deployed two attackers to the mosque. There was no explanation for the contradictory number of attackers.

Security forces had surrounded the mosque in the northern Kabul neighborhood but did not initially enter to prevent further casualties to the many worshippers inside, police official Mohammed Jamil said.