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At least 30 people have been killed in an explosion at a minority Shia mosque in the Afghan province of Herat, according to local sources.
“At around 8:00pm (1530 GMT) tonight, a terrorist attack was carried out on a mosque in the third security district of Herat city,” Herat police spokesman Abdul Ahad Walizada told AFP news agency.
“Based on our initial information two terrorists were involved one of them wearing a suicide vest, who detonated himself while the second one was armed with a rifle. They are both dead,” he added.
Sources told Al Jazeera that 30 people were brought to the main hospital in Herat city, the capital of the western province, on Tuesday night, soon after the blast.
“There has been an explosion at the gate of Jawadia Mosque in Herat city,” interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish told AFP news agency.
#AFG The mosque was packed with almost 1,000 worshippers. My eyes just see dead bodies and blood everywhere. This is a massacre,
— BILAL SARWARY (@bsarwary) August 1, 2017
A hospital spokesperson said that many were injured in the explosion.
“More than 30 wounded have so far been brought to the hospital,” Rafeeq Shirzai told AFP.
No one immediately took responsibility for the attack.
The explosion at the mosque comes a day after an attack on the Iraqi embassy in Kabul, which was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, killed two people.
More details soon…
