KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) — A militant attack on a Kabul mosque killed at least four people and wounded eight more late on Thursday (June 15), an official said, as Muslims crowded the city’s prayer halls for religious observances in the month of Ramadan.
Two gunmen and a suicide bomber tried to enter the Al Zahra mosque used by Kabul’s Shi’ite minority, but were blocked by police, setting off a gun battle, witnesses and officials said. They then took refuge in the mosque’s kitchen, where one detonated a bomb while the other two were killed by security forces, they added.
Among the dead were at least three civilians and one police officer, while four civilians and four police were wounded.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, the group’s Amaq news agency said. The militant Sunni movement considers members of Kabul’s Shi’ite minority as heretics, and has targeted them in the past.
