KANDAHAR: Afghanistan’s Shia minority buried their dead for the second Saturday in a row after another suicide bomb attack on a mosque was claimed by the militant Islamic State (IS) group.

Religious authorities in the southern city of Kandahar said the toll from Friday’s assault had reached 60, as hundreds of diggers opened row after row of graves in the dusty soil.

The latest massacre came just a week after another IS-claimed attack on Shia 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 terrorist group said two bombers from the militant Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) group carried out separate attacks on different parts of the mosque in Kandahar — the spiritual heartland of the Taliban — while worshippers prayed inside.

The UK-based conflict analysis firm ExTrac said Friday’s assault was the first by IS-K in Kandahar, and the fourth mass casualty massacre since the Taliban took over Kabul.

IS claims assault, says two suicide bombers attacked mosque

Researcher Abdul Sayed said the attack “challenged the Taliban claims of holding control of the country. If the Taliban can’t protect Kandahar from an IS-K attack, how could it protect the rest of the country?”

The killings triggered international condemnation. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned the “despicable attack” and demanded those using violence to restrict Afghans’ religious freedom be brought to justice.

At the gravesides, mourner Gul Ahmad spoke of his grief over his brother’s slaying: “He had two little children. He had a home to live in. He had everything. The pain of the loss cannot be described with words.”

The crowd brought body after body, shrouded in white sheets, as a dust storm was whipped up by the constant digging.

“The world will remember this. The Islamic world will remember this barbarism, specifically the dignified people of Afghanistan,” warned another mourner, Muhammad Agha.

Inside the mosque, the walls were pockmarked by 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 security for the mosque had been provided by guards from the Shia community but that following the brutal attack the Taliban would take charge of its protection.

Witnesses 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.

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 Taliban, who seized control of Afghanistan after overthrowing the US-backed government, have their own history of persecuting Shias. But the new Taliban-led administration has vowed to stabilise the country, and in the wake of the Kunduz attack promised to protect the minority now living under its rule.

Shias are estimated to make up roughly 10 per cent 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 Shia mosque in the west of Kabul, killing 56 people and wounding 55.

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2021