At least 12 individuals have been killed in a mosque blast on the outskirts of the Afghan capital on Friday, shattering the relative calm of a vacation ceasefire between the warring Taliban and authorities forces.
Among these killed was the imam main Friday prayers on the mosque on the second day of the Muslim pageant of Eid al-Fitr. More than a dozen individuals have been injured.
“The dying toll has jumped to 12 killed together with the imam of the mosque and 15 others are wounded,” said Ferdaws Framurz, a spokesman for Kabul police, updating an earlier toll.
No group has so far claimed the attack and the Taliban denied responsibility. Afghan officials regularly blame such blasts on the militant group who in turn insist they are fighting the Afghan military and not attacking civilians.
The blast comes after Afghan officials on Friday said the United States had pulled out completely from a major southern air base in the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.
US airstrikes were launched from the base just last week to help Afghan forces push back a major Taliban offensive.
Missed deadline
Kandahar was the birthplace of the Taliban and has in recent months seen intense clashes between the resurgent militants and Afghan forces.
“They have not officially handed over the base to us but I can confirm they left the base on Wednesday,” stated Khoja Yaya Alawi, a spokesman for the Afghan military in Kandahar.
“The handover of Kandahar Airfield was coordinated” with senior Afghan leaders and the military, said Sonny Leggett, the US military spokesman in Afghanistan.
“It is now going to be very difficult for us to conduct operations,” he stated. “Our plane can’t fly at night time so the night time operations are going to be tough.”
The airfield was formerly the second largest base for US and international troops in Afghanistan and the first airfield where US forces were stationed after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
It was also the centre of the biggest drone operation by US special forces.
However, the US missed the May 1 deadline, extending it to September 11 — a move which angered the Taliban.
Although fighting between the US forces and the Taliban has stopped since the landmark agreement last year, battles rage daily between Afghan government forces and the militants.
Ceasefires in the past have largely held, in what is widely thought to be an exercise by the Taliban leadership to prove it has control over the myriad factions across the country that make up the hardline movement.
The Pentagon on Tuesday said it had so far completed between six and 12 percent of America’s final withdrawal from the country.
A number of smaller bases have already been handed over to Afghan forces.
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