Local media and Afghanistan’s former president said the mosque was targeted because it was where the country’s Shiite Muslim minority prayed.
Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said that on Monday evening around 9:00 p.m. local time (19:30 Lithuanian time) “an unknown armed person shot at civilian worshipers in a mosque” in Guzara district of Herat province.
Six civilians were killed and another wounded, he wrote on the X social network early Tuesday morning.
According to the ministry’s spokesperson, an investigation is currently underway.
The assailant fled the scene. According to local authorities, the imam of the mosque is among the dead.
The state-run Bakhtar news agency reported the same death toll in an attack in an area south of the provincial capital Herat.
While no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, analysts say the regional branch of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist movement poses the biggest security threat in Afghanistan.
“I strongly condemn the attack on the Imam Zaman mosque,” former Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on the X platform. “I believe that this terrorist act is against all religious and human norms.”
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan also condemned the attack, which it said killed and wounded at least seven people, including a child. She called for the perpetrators to be prosecuted as soon as possible and for measures to be taken to protect Shia communities.
The Afghan branch of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group is the main opponent of the Taliban and frequently carries out attacks on schools, hospitals and various Shia sites across the country.
In 2021, the United States made a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan after nearly 20 years, leaving behind depleted Afghan forces, and the Taliban marched into Kabul and seized power again.
Although the Taliban initially promised to adopt more moderate views, it gradually returned to a strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law.
Tags: people killed armed attacker stormed mosque Afghanistan
