At least 62 people were killed by a blast inside an Afghan mosque during Friday prayers, according to officials, a day after the United Nations said violence in the country had reached “unacceptable” levels.
The attack – the year’s second most deadly to date – took place in the eastern province of Nangarhar and also wounded at least 33 people, the provincial governor’s spokesman Attaullah Khogyani told AFP.
The blast was carried out with “explosives that were placed inside the mosque”, Khogyani said, though other sources – including the Taliban – said the building may have been hit by a mortar.
A spokesman for the Islamist extremist Taliban said the group has “condemned this atrocity in the strongest terms” and labelled it a “major crime”.
The Islamic State group has also been active in Nangarhar.
