Bombing in Afghanistan at memorial ceremony for Taliban official kills 11 people

KABUL (AP): A bomb ripped through a memorial service in Afghanistan’s northeastern Badakhshan province on Thursday, killing at least 11 people, officials said.

A former Taliban police official was among those killed and more than 30 were also wounded in the explosion near Nabawi Mosque, according to Abdul Nafi Takor, the Taliban-appointed spokesman for the interior ministry.

There were concerns that the number of casualties could rise further as more information becomes available, Takor added.

The bombing apparently targeted the memorial service for Nisar Ahmad Ahmadi, the deputy governor of Badakhshan who was killed in a car bombing on Tuesday. That attack in Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan, also killed the deputy governor’s driver and wounded 10 other people.

Moazuddin Ahmadi, the Taliban official in charge of information and culture, confirmed Thursday’s explosion and the killing of Safiullah Samim, a former Taliban police chief in Baghlan.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Thursday’s attack. The Islamic State group — a top rival of the Taliban — has claimed responsibility for the car bombing on Tuesday.

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack, saying in a tweet that the bombing of mosques is an act of “terrorism” and goes “against human and Islamic standards”

Several senior Taliban officials attended Ahmadi’s funeral, which took place on Wednesday, along with hundreds of residents of Faizabad.

The Taliban chief of the military, Fasihuddin Fitrat, denounced the IS attacks in Badakhshan and asked people to cooperate with Taliban security forces and report suspicious activities in their areas.

In December, a car bombing killed Badakhshan’s provincial police chief as he was on his way to work. The IS regional affiliate — known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province — said at the time that it had carried out that attack. IS said it had parked an explosive-laden car on the road and detonated it when the police chief was close by.