Blast in mosque kills local Taliban leader in southeastern Afghanistan

By S. K. Khan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AA) – A local Taliban religious leader was killed and seven others were wounded in a bomb blast inside a mosque in Afghanistan, an official confirmed on Thursday.

According to Interior Ministry spokesman Qari Saeed Khosti, the religious leader was killed in a hand grenade blast in the Deri area in the southeastern Khost province on Thursday morning.

Separately, a prayer leader was gunned down by an unknown gunman in Qarghayee district of Laghman province bordering the country’s capital Kabul, reported the local Salam Afghanistan radio.

It was not immediately clear if the killing was politically motivated or a personal feud.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman and acting deputy minister for information and culture, said in a statement last week that a hideout of the Daesh-affiliated militants located in the northern Kher Khana district of Kabul was dismantled.

After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, deadly clashes between the two groups have surged that have also seen several public hangings of alleged Daesh/ISIS fighters in Nangarhar.

At least eight people were killed in a Daesh-claimed suicide attack at a mosque in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul on Sunday, according to media reports.