At least 32 killed and 50 wounded in attack on Afghan Shi'ite mosque

At least 32 people were killed and 50 wounded on Friday after an explosion at a Shi'ite minority mosque during Friday prayers in southern Afghanistan, just a week after a similar attack on another temple left 80 dead and more than a hundred injured.

In the first hours it was claimed that "seven dead bodies and thirteen wounded had been evacuated from the Imam-Bargah mosque to a hospital in Kandahar", the capital of the province of the same name, a local official told the EFE news agency, requesting anonymity and clarifying that the number of victims could rise, as it has done as the hours have gone by.

The attack took place at around 13:00 (8:30 GMT) at a Shiite mosque in the city of Kandahar, Abdul Rahman, an eyewitness to the tragedy, told EFE, but could not say how many people were killed.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Qari Saeed Khosty, also confirmed to EFE that "unfortunately, there was an explosion inside a mosque of the Shiite brothers" in Kandahar, which caused several casualties among the "compatriots".

"Special forces of the Islamic Emirate (as the Taliban call themselves) arrived in the area to determine the nature of the attack and other details, and also to bring the culprits to justice," Khosty said.

Social media has been flooded with images of the tragedy, with numerous bloodied bodies strewn around the central part of the mosque, some of them with severed limbs.

This attack comes just a week after a suicide bombing of a Shiite minority mosque in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz left at least 80 people dead and more than a hundred injured.

The suicide attack, claimed by the jihadist organisation Islamic State (IS), spread terror among an Afghan Shia minority that feels more unprotected than ever since the Taliban took power on 15 August.

Leaders of the Shia community in Kunduz called on the Taliban to ensure the protection of the minority, as well as their places of worship, after banning them from having their own security by confiscating their weapons.

IS has carried out numerous attacks in recent years against the Shia minority, especially the Hazara, although in today's case some of the victims were also Pashtun, the majority ethnic group in the country and the Taliban's own.

The jihadist group has multiplied its attacks in Afghanistan since the final withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan shortly before midnight on 31 August, the largest of which was the attack on Kabul airport on 26 August, which killed some 170 people.