Alwaght- Terrorists have struck the Afghan capital Kabul targeting a Shiite Mosque and killed at least nine people.
The casualties were caused after a terrorist, who had been stopped at a nearby security checkpoint, set off an explosive device he was carrying, said Nasrat Rahimi, a deputy Interior Ministry spokesman.
Rahimi said the terrorist apparently sought to target crowds comprising members of Afghanistan’s Shiite Hazara community. They had gathered to commemorate Abdul Ali Mazari, a Hazara political leader killed by the Taliban militant group in 1995.
Reports say the explosion occurred close to Mosalla-e-Mazari area in Kabul's sixth district.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Kabul has seen a spate of deadly attacks carried out by both the Taliban and the ISIS terrorist group in recent months.
In January, a Taliban attacker drove an ambulance filled with explosives into the heart of Kabul, killing at least 103 people and wounding as many as 235. A day later, at least 11 soldiers were killed when gunmen attacked a military academy, also in Kabul.
In December, dozens of people were killed in a suicide attack on a Shia cultural centre, claimed by ISIS. Two months earlier, two, separate mosque attacks had killed at least 72 people.
Friday's attack came less than two weeks after President Ashraf Ghani called on the Taliban to join peace talks, to end more than 16 years of the latest phase of Afghan war.
Afghanistan is still suffering from insecurity and violence years after the US and its allies invaded the country in 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. US-led forces continue to occupy the country amid an upsurge of terrorist attacks by ISIS and Taliban groups and an unprecedented increase on narcotics production.
