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Taliban arrest Daesh ‘mastermind’ of Shiite mosque attack in Afghanistan
The Arab News reported, citing the AFP, Afghan police said on Friday (Apr 22) that Taliban forces have arrested a suspected Daesh militant who planned a bomb attack that killed at least 12 worshippers at a Shiite mosque in Afghanistan.
Daesh claimed the bomb blast that tore through the Seh Dokan mosque during midday prayers in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Thursday (Apr 21). The attack also wounded 58 people.
Balkh province’s police spokesman Asif Waziri said Abdul Hamid Sangaryar was a key operative of Daesh.
Waziri said: “He was the mastermind of yesterday’s attack on the mosque.” The interior ministry also reported the arrest of Sangaryar, an Afghan national.
Waziri said: “He played a key role in several attacks in the past and had repeatedly managed to escape, but this time we arrested him in a special operation."
Breaking news:
— Afghanistan 24/7 (@AfghanUpdates) April 22, 2022
Daesh’s former governor for Balkh Province and the suspicious attack planner of the mosque blast in Mizar e Sharif is arrested by Islamic Emirate forces in Chahar Bolak district of Balkh, said, Security officials #Afghanistan #bombing #Mizar pic.twitter.com/H8iVLWQbFM
Daesh also claimed a separate bomb attack in another northern city of Kunduz on Thursday that killed four people and wounded 18 people.
The group has taken responsibility for deadly attacks in Afghanistan, often against Shiite targets, even as the number of bombings have fallen since the Taliban seized power in August last year.
Daesh claim responsibility for attack on Shiite mosque in northern Afghanistan
Shiite Afghans are mostly from the ethnic Hazara community and make up between 10 and 20 percent of the country’s 38 million people. They have long been the target of the Daesh, who consider them heretics.
Earlier this week, at least six people were killed in twin blasts that hit a boys’ school in a Shiite neighborhood of Kabul. No group has so far claimed that attack.
Taliban officials insist their forces have defeated Daesh, but analysts say the militant group is a key security challenge.
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The Taliban have regularly raided suspected Daesh hideouts, especially in eastern Nangarhar province — a bastion of the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), the local wing of the militant group.
The biggest ideological difference between the two Sunni Islamist groups is that the Taliban sought only an Afghanistan free of foreign forces, whereas Daesh wants an Islamic caliphate stretching from Turkey to Pakistan and beyond.
Source: arabnews
