Afghanistan: Blast In Mosque In Herat Kills 18 Including Top Pro-Taliban Cleric

An explosion in a mosque in Afghanistan's Herat killed at least 18 people, with including a well-known cleric close to the Taliban regime. 

At least 21 people were injured in the explosion that tore through the crowded Guzargah Mosque in western Afghanistan's Herat on Friday. The blast left the courtyard of the mosque littered with bodies, the ground stained with blood, video from the scene showed. The bomb went off during Friday noon prayers, when mosques are full of worshippers.

Among the dead was Mujib-ul Rahman Ansari, a prominent cleric who was known across Afghanistan for his criticism of the country's Western-backed governments over the past two decades. Ansari was seen as close to the Taliban, who seized control over Afghanistan a year ago as foreign forces withdrew. His death was confirmed by the chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. 

Just before the bombing, Ansari had been meeting in another part of the city with the Taliban regime's Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was on a visit to Herat. He had rushed from the meeting to the mosque to get to the noon prayers, an aide to Baradar said in a tweet mourning the cleric.

A report said that it was a suicide attack.

Ambulances transported 18 bodies and 21 people wounded from the blast to hospitals in Herat, said Mohammad Daud Mohammadi, an official at the Herat ambulance center said. 

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Friday's blast.

Last month, a bombing at a mosque in the capital Kabul targeted and killed a pro-Taliban cleric in an attack claimed by the terrorist group ISIS, which has waged a bloody campaign of attacks on Taliban targets and minority groups, particularly Shia Muslims whom the Sunni ISIS considers heretics. It has frequently hit mosques with suicide attacks during Friday prayers.

Herat's Guzargah Mosque, where Ansari has long been the preacher, draws followers of Sunni Islam, the dominant stream in Afghanistan that is also followed by the Taliban.

Ansari was for years a thorn in the side of Afghanistan's pro-Western government. In his sermons at the Guzargah, he urged his many supporters to carry out protests against the governments and preached against women's rights. AFP reported that he in July "called for those who commit 'the smallest act against our Islamic government' to be beheaded".

The terrorist group ISIS and Taliban have been engaged in a power struggle in Afghanistan. While the Taliban has goals limited to Afghanistan, the ISIS has a vision of global Islamic state dubbed a Caliphate. The two groups therefore don't get along with each other. Unlike Al Qaeda, with which the Taliban has been close, most recently shown by the presence of its former chief Al Zawahiri in Kabul, the Taliban has often fought with ISIS.

"ISIS-K [an affiliate of ISIS] subscribes to the Jihadi-Salafism ideology — and plays up the ‘purity’ of its anti-idolatry credentials. The Taliban, on the other hand, subscribe to an alternative Sunni Islamic sectarian school, the Hanafi madhhab, which ISIS-K regards as deficient. The two groups also differ over the role of nationalism. ISIS-K fiercely rejects it, which runs counter to the Afghan Taliban’s aims of ruling over Afghanistan," explains think tank Wilson Center.

(With AP inputs)