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THE ISLAMIC STATE group has claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack on a Shiite mosque in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar that killed at least 41 people and injured scores more.
Yesterday’s assault came just a week after another IS-claimed attack on Shiite worshippers at a mosque in the northern city of Kunduz that killed more than 60 people.
In a statement released on its Telegram channels, the jihadist group said two Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) suicide bombers carried out separate attacks on different parts of the mosque in Kandahar – the spiritual heartland of the Taliban – while worshippers prayed inside.
The group, a bitter rival of fellow Sunni Islamist movement the Taliban, which swept back to power in Afghanistan in August as the United States and its allies withdrew, regards Shiite Muslims as heretics.
UK-based conflict analysis firm ExTrac said yesterday’s assault was the first by IS-K in Kandahar, and the fourth mass casualty massacre since the Taliban took Kabul.
Inside the mosque, after the blast, the walls were pockmarked with shrapnel and volunteers swept up debris in the ornately painted prayer hall. Rubble lay in an entrance corridor.
In the wake of the explosions, Kandahar police chief Maulvi Mehmood said “a brutal attack has been witnessed on a Shiite mosque as a result of which a huge number of our countrymen have lost their lives”.
In a video statement, Mehmood said security for the mosque had been provided by guards from the Shiite community but that henceforth the Taliban would take charge of its protection.
Hafiz Abdulhai Abbas, director of health for Kandahar, told AFP 41 people had been killed about 70 wounded, according to hospital information.
At least 15 ambulances were seen rushing to and from the scene, as Taliban security cordoned off the area.
“We are overwhelmed,” a doctor at the city’s central Mirwais hospital told AFP.
“There are too many dead bodies and wounded people brought to our hospital. We are expecting more to come. We are in urgent need of blood. We have asked all the local media in Kandahar to ask people to come and donate blood.”
Many worshippers
Eyewitnesses spoke of gunfire alongside the explosions, and a security guard assigned to protect the mosque said three of his comrades had been shot as the bombers fought their way in.
Sayed Rohullah told AFP: “It was the Friday prayer time, and when we were preparing I heard shots. Two people had entered the mosque.
“They had opened fire on the guards and in response the guards had also opened fire on them. One of them committed a suicide blast inside the mosque.”
Other bombs were detonated in crowded areas outside the main building, he and other witnesses said.
“We are saddened to learn that an explosion took place in a mosque of the Shiite brotherhood in the first district of Kandahar city in which a number of our compatriots were martyred and wounded,” tweeted Taliban interior ministry spokesman Qari Sayed Khosti.
The US State Department spokesman Ned Price said Washington condemned the attack and reiterated a call for the “Taliban to live up to the commitment it has made to counterterrorism, and specifically to taking on the shared threat we face from ISIS-K”.
“We are determined to see to it that no group … can ever again use Afghan soil as a launching pad for attacks on the United States or other countries.”
The UN mission in Afghanistan in a tweet also condemned the “latest atrocity targeting a religious institution and worshippers”.
“Those responsible need to be held to account.”
The Taliban, which seized control of Afghanistan after overthrowing the US-backed government, has its own history of persecuting Shiites.
But the new Taliban-led administration has vowed to stabilise the country, and in the wake of the Kunduz attack promised to protect the Shiite minority now living under its rule.
Shiites are estimated to make up roughly 10% of the Afghan population. Many of them are Hazara, an ethnic group that has been persecuted in Afghanistan for decades.
In October 2017, an IS suicide attacker struck a Shiite mosque in the west of Kabul, killing 56 people and wounding 55.
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Apollo House is a short term solution and a longer term solution is required.
Apollo House has re-ignited outrage over homelessness.
Others will fill the vacancies.
If you can afford to donate, here is the online link.
@Scarlett Milton: There would be no stunts needed if the government took its sworn duty to look after ALL the citizens of the country in a serious manner. It was FG who brought the eviction bill before the Dail and backed it up with the Courts (2016) Bill. This along with its neo-liberal love for market economics, that makes a commodity for profit out of all human need, is what caused the homeless epidemic.
Brendan Ogle, is a first rate organiser, a leader, who can bring people together in common cause. He has used his energies to do something positive to help and highlight the homeless epidemic in the country. Dame Enda, has done diddly squat, nothing, except to legislate to make the problem worse.
Government are in hiding.shame on them.
@@mdmak33: They haven’t really hidden. Their agencies have taken up the fight against Apollo Hse and the organisers.
Apollo Hse and the organisers are not on the list of approved charities, they don’t depend on government funding, the approved charities do.
@@mdmak33:was just thinking that my sled not a word from any of them . Especially independents where are u all gone
@John Scott: the politicians are certainly running scared on this one.
@Scarlett Milton: Home Sweet Home and Apollo House is primarily about generating a critical mass of awareness of and motivation to address the homeless crisis.
This is about issues and not about personalities.
I smell a rat on this. So PMVT are offering all tenants of Apollo a 6 month residential opportunity? How quick was that?! They are trying to undermine the positivity of what has happened by reducing the nightly count in Apollo to zero quickly. They are working through government funded charities to do so. We saw through it Kenny. .
@saoirse janneau: it does seem very odd that 6 month spaces should open up with such remarkable speed.
It’s stretching things to suggest that these spaces were planned and provided in a week. The truth of the matter, that these spaces were planned already, might not suit Brendan ogle’s election purposes, but everyone but the paranoid conspiracy theorists can understand it.
@John Mulligan: then thankfully Apollo House played an invaluable role as a stop gap measure to accommodate more than 35 homeless people as Storm Barbara approaches.
I take the people involved in Home Sweet Home as principled, humane, idealistic and altruistic. I include Ogle in that.
@Micheal OLainn @saoirse janneau: I think it´s very important right now to be careful not to direct our (very justified anger) towards PMVT. A charity who have applauded the newcomers Home Sweet Home and have decades of experience of fighting homelessness are not the people we need to put under the microscope. Direct your anger and your misgivings towards the governement. What´s their response?
@Micheal OLainn: It’s a very clever spin attack, meant to divide public opinion and remove the huge support the Apollo Hse has received from the public.
The government’s usual response to any display of people power.
@Dave Doyle: you are absolutely right and I found myself falling for it.
@Micheál Clesham: I truly accept your valid and justified criticism. Well said and I hold the McVerry trust and FathercMcVerry in the highest esteem. Indeed I have made donations but I feel protective of the Apollo House initiative which is beleaguered from many sides, most lately from Dublin City Council.
Interesting http://jrnl.ie/3157263f
32 have not taken up the offer yet .. that’s sad really ..
@Dave Doyle: brilliant and comprehensive comment.
what kind of trolls were out tonight?
@John Byrne: I don´t disagree with some of what you´ve said (i although i´m not sure where you´re going with the last line).
But, did the fight against homelessness not need a publicity stunt? Surely no one believes that anything about Apollo House is long term but was there any harm in throwing up a hail-mary move like this?
@Scarlett Milton: You’re a typical example of ‘you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t’. This is not about personalities, and your attitude is unhelpful and you’re simply just looking to stir this typical online drama to pass your time. Be original for gods sake and find something else to poke at!!
Give it another 3 weeks or so and nobody will give a flying f€&k until Christmas comes around again and Glen gets all festive emotional again. It’s government action that is needed not out of work crusties singin Kumbuya.
@TellingItAsItIs: thankfully you will be proven wrong. Your low class jibes discredit your feeble point. The flag has been raised.
@Michael Mark my words. You’ll be eating crusty humble pie as soon as a few of their dole days comes around.
@John Byrne: A load of bollixology from you. It’s not about Brendan Ogle or the organisers. It’s all about the government and its neo-liberal market primacy ideology that turns human need in a for profit commodity. A government that has farmed out its responsibilities to charities. Charities where the majority of the funding goes on salaries and a pittance goes where it’s intended.
Apollo Hse has shown people what can be done when people organise themselves and use the resources at their disposal, the vacant, public owned buildings, to give some respite to the most disadvantaged in society. And it terrifies the government.
The PMVT versus Apollo Hse spin we are now seeing spread across the media is phase two of the government’s response. The first being the very fast court action. This latest stunt to divide people and get the government off the hook wont work if the truth is told. What PMVT is offering the homeless is also a long time in the planning. It too offers the homeless a genuine alternative to a shop doorway, or a mat covered floorspace, that takes no account of the homeless’s problems, needs, safety or dignity. That’s the best DCC can come up with.
Public leaders are well entitled to demand how the government spends the resources. That’s democracy. The government’s sworn duty is to use the resources of the state for the benefit of ALL its citizens. The government and its love for a market driven ideology does not serve its ALL citizens. It serves only a select few.
75 Social housing units built this year, the government’s reluctance to provide council housing is why we are here, they put it on to private landlords to fill the gap through RAS and it hasn’t worked, it’s basically privatisation of Social housing, there are always going to be people who cannot afford to buy their own house and these people should be accommodated by Social housing.
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