ASSADABAD: A suicide bomber on Friday attacked a mosque in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least six people including a district police chief, a government official said.
The attack happened as worshippers were leaving the mosque after the main Friday prayers in the Qazi Abad area of the eastern province of Kunar, which borders Pakistan, said provincial governor Fazullulah Wahidi.
"The attacker detonated his explosives in the mosque, killing the district police chief, an intelligence officer, two police and two civilians," the governor told AFP.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Kunar has been a flashpoint in the Taliban's 10-year insurgency against the Western-backed government and 140,000 US-led foreign troops.
The attack came three days after coordinated attacks on Shiite Muslims in the capital Kabul and the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif killed at least 59 people in an unprecedented assault on the holy day of Ashura.
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In the Afghan capital, more than 2,000 Afghans gathered on the final day of Ashoura and denounced neighboring Pakistan for this week’s bombing at a shrine in Kabul that has stirred anti-Pakistan sentiment in the nation. Ashoura commemorates the murder in the seventh century of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) grandson.