Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kana’ani deplored a terror attack on a mosque in Northern Afghanistan during the funeral of the Taliban’s provincial deputy governor who had been killed in a car bombing earlier this week.
Kana’ani on Thursday condemned the recent terror attack on a funeral ceremony in Badakhshan province.
The spokesperson stressed that “terrorist attacks against civilians especially at religious sites have nothing to do with the teachings of the holy religion of Islam”.
The explosion occurred on Thursday at a mosque in Faizabad, the capital city of Badakhshan province, where Taliban officials had gathered for condolence prayers for a slain deputy governor, who was also killed in a car bombing on Tuesday. It has killed at least 15 people and injured 50 others.
Provincial director for Information and Culture Qari Maazudin Ahamdi said that a former police chief of Afghanistan’s Baghlan province was among the victims of the blast.
No group or individual has yet to claim responsibility for Thursday’s fatal attack in Faizabad.
The Taliban, who had previously ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, took power again in August 2021 as the US was in the middle of a chaotic troop withdrawal. The group announced the formation of a caretaker government weeks later. Following the Taliban’s takeover, the US and its allies rushed to cut off Afghanistan’s access to international aid and froze nearly $10 billion in assets belonging to the country’s central bank.
The Taliban administration has been carrying out raids against members of Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL), which had claimed several major attacks in urban centres.
Despite the Taliban’s assertion that they have brought security to the nation, Afghanistan has seen regular attacks by armed groups, many of them claimed by a Daesh affiliate known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K), in recent months. Daesh raids have resulted in around hunreds of deaths since the Taliban came to power nearly two years ago. The militants have primarily targeted religious and ethnic minorities, as well as schools, mainly with suicide bombings.
Iranian President Seyed Ebrahim Rayeesi warned that the Ukraine war in should not make the international community forget the crisis in Afghanistan.
“The US and NATO presence in Afghanistan meant nothing more than destruction and killing, and it did not provide security for Afghanistan or the region,” Rayeesi stated.
The president added that the war in Ukraine must not divert international attention from the unfolding crisis in Afghanistan, the problems facing its people and the large number of refugees leaving the country.
He also warned about a surge in threats against Afghanistan and other regional nations.
Tehran blamed the militant groups and foreign countries which interfered in Afghanistan in recent years for the recent terrorist attacks in the war-torn country.
