Deadly attack on Kunduz mosque during Friday

Deadly attack on Kunduz mosque during Friday prayers a deadly attack on a mosque in Kunduz, Afghanistan has left at least 30 people dead and dozens more wounded. The attack was carried out by two bombers who detonated explosives during Friday prayers. It is believed that the Taliban are responsible for the bombing of the mosque which had over 300 worshippers inside at the time. This is not an isolated incident as mosques all around Afghanistan have been targeted with bombs or other attacks in recent weeks.

On October 1, two suicide bombers killed 41 worshipers at a Shiite mosque in Kabul. On September 29, another six people were killed in an attack on a Sunni mosque in the northern province of Samangan. The Taliban denied responsibility for the attacks while no one has claimed responsibility yet for these latest deadly bombings. There have been other similar incidents in Afghanistan as well.

On September 17, five people were killed in a bomb blast at a mosque in the city of Herat. Two weeks earlier on September 3, another three people were killed after a bomb hidden in a microphone was detonated as the imam began the call to prayer at a Shiite mosque in Kabul. The Taliban have been behind many of these bombings and other such attacks on places of worship.

The Afghan war has been going on for over 15 years and the Taliban have been resurgent since at least 2015. Kunduz is a major city in northern Afghanistan and has been contested several times since 2015 by both sides. There are many different ethnic groups in Afghanistan and religious tension between Sunnis and Shiites has been growing in recent years. The Afghan government is dominated by the minority group of Tajiks who are mostly Sunni Muslims while most of the Taliban are Pashtun who are mainly Sunni Muslims with some being members of ISIS who are just as ruthless if not more so than the Taliban.