- Those coming to pray “discovered the bodies”: resident.
- Attacks regularly target rituals and gatherings in the country.
- The explosion of a Sufi mosque in April 2022 killed 33 people.
Kabul: Ten people were killed when a gunman opened fire on a Sufi shrine in northern Afghanistan’s Baghlan province, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. Agence France-Presse Friday.
Abdul-Matin Qani, an official in the ministry, said, “A man opened fire on Sufis who were participating in weekly rituals at a shrine in a remote area in Two Rivers, killing 10 people.”
A Nahrain resident, who knew the victims of the attack, said Agence France-Presse Worshipers had gathered at the shrine of Sayyid Pasha Agha on Thursday evening.
He added that they began chanting Sufi slogans when “a man opened fire on dozens of worshipers.”
He added, “When people arrived for dawn prayer, they discovered the bodies.”
Attacks regularly target participants during rituals or gatherings in Afghanistan, a country with a very large Muslim majority but where Taliban authorities impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law, which differs from Sufism.
In April 2022, 33 people, including children, were killed in an explosion targeting a Sufi mosque during Friday prayers in Kunduz province.
The number of bomb attacks has decreased since the Taliban authorities returned to power in 2021, but ISIS’s regional affiliate, ISIS-K, still attacks targets they consider heretical.
In September, ISIS Khorasan claimed responsibility for an attack in central Afghanistan that killed 14 people who had gathered to welcome pilgrims returning from the holy site of Karbala in Iraq.