A government spokesman says an unknown gunman opened fire on worshipers at a mosque in Herat province, killing at least six people.
A gunman stormed a mosque in western Afghanistan and killed six people, a government spokesman says.
Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said “an unknown armed person fired on civilian worshipers at a mosque in Andisheh town, Guzara district, Herat province at around 9pm (16:30 GMT) on Monday.”
“Six civilians were martyred and one civilian was injured,” he wrote on the social media platform X early Tuesday morning.
State news agency Bakhtar gave the same death toll for the attack. Citing local sources, local media outlet Tolo reported that the mosque belonged to Afghanistan’s Shiite minority.
According to local media reports, a prayer leader named Imam was also killed in the attack. The Iranian embassy in Kabul condemned the attack.
While no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, the regional branch of Islamic State (ISIS) represents the biggest security threat in Afghanistan and has frequently targeted Shiite communities.
The Taliban government has pledged to protect religious and ethnic minorities since returning to power in August 2021, but human rights monitors say they have done little to fulfill that promise.
The most notorious ISIL-related attack since the Taliban came to power occurred in 2022, when at least 53 people – including 46 girls and young women – were killed in a suicide attack on an education center in a Shiite neighborhood of Kabul. Taliban officials blamed ISIL for the attack.
Kabul’s new rulers claim to have eliminated ISIS from Afghanistan and are extremely sensitive to suggestions that the group has found safe haven in the country since foreign troops withdrew.
Taliban authorities have often given lower death tolls than other sources after bombings and gun attacks, in an apparent attempt to downplay security threats.
A United Nations Security Council report released in January said there had been a decline in ISIL attacks in Afghanistan due to the Taliban’s “counterterrorism efforts.” However, the report also said that ISIL still had “significant” recruiting forces in the country and that the armed group had “the ability to project a threat into the region and beyond.”
The ISIL division, which covers Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, claimed responsibility for the March attack on the Crocus City Hall concert hall in Moscow that killed more than 140 people. It was the deadliest attack in Russia in two decades.