Worshippers gathering after Friday prayers at a Kabul mosque have been targeted in a suspected terrorist bombing.
The blast occurred at the Khalifa Sahib Mosque in the Darulaman area in the city’s west where hundreds congregated on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Besmullah Habib, deputy spokesman for the interior ministry, said the official confirmed death toll was 10.
A health source said hospitals had received 66 dead bodies and 78 wounded people so far, Reuters reported.
Sayed Fazil Agha, the head of the mosque, said someone they believed was a suicide bomber joined them in the ceremony and detonated explosives.
“Black smoke rose and spread everywhere, dead bodies were everywhere,” he said, adding that his nephews were among the dead. “I myself survived, but lost my beloved ones.”
He said over 50 people died from the explosion.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the blast at the Sunni mosque.
The worshippers were gathering for a congregation known as Zikr—an act of religious remembrance practiced by some Muslims but seen as heretical by some hardline Sunni groups.
The United Nations said it condemned the “heinous attack.”
Scores of Afghan civilians have been killed in recent weeks in blasts, some of which have been claimed by the Islamic State.
The Taliban claimed that they had secured the country since taking power in August last year and largely eliminated Islamic State’s local offshoot, but international officials and analysts said the risk of a resurgence in military remains.
Many of the attacks have targeted the Shi'ite minority, though Sunni mosques— as seen on Friday—have also been attacked.
Bombs exploded aboard two passenger vans carrying Shi'ite Muslims in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Thursday, killing at least nine people. On April 22, a blast ripped through a Sunni mosque during Friday prayers in the city of Kunduz, killing 33 people.
