KABUL: A huge bomb blast on Friday at one of the biggest mosques in western Afghanistan killed at least 18 people, including an influential cleric who earlier this year called for those who commit “the smallest act” against the government to be beheaded.
Images posted on Twitter showed what appeared to be blood-stained bodies scattered around the compound of Gazargah Mosque in Herat city.
Violence has largely declined since the Taliban returned to power last year, but several bomb blasts — some targeting minority communities — have rocked the country in recent months, many claimed by the militant Islamic State (IS) group.
At least 18 people were killed and 23 wounded in Friday’s blast, said Hameedullah Motawakel, spokesman for the governor of Herat province, in a text message to media.
Government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed Mujib ur Rahman Ansari, the imam of the mosque, was among the dead.
“A strong and courageous religious scholar of this country was martyred in a brutal attack,” he said on Twitter.
Ansari was an influential cleric known for his fiery speeches. In July, during a religious gathering in Kabul, he strongly defended Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers.
“Whoever commits the smallest act against our Islamic government should be beheaded,” he had said.
“This (Taliban) flag has not been raised easily, and it will not be lowered easily.”
Before the Taliban returned to power in August last year, Ansari was known for his tirades against the previous US-backed governments.
Ansari is the second pro-Taliban cleric to be killed in a blast in less than a month, after an earlier suicide attack targeted Rahimullah Haqqani at his madrassa in Kabul.
