KABUL (Dispatches) --
Taliban authorities pledged to step up security at Shia mosques as hundreds of people gathered on Saturday to bury the victims of the second Daesh terrorist attack on worshipers in a week.
The takfiri group claimed responsibility for the attack on the Fatima mosque in Kandahar that saw a group of terrorists shoot their way into the mosque before blowing themselves up among the worshipers during Friday prayers.
A health official said the casualty toll from the attack stood at 41 dead and 70 wounded but could rise further. “Some of the wounded are in a critical condition and we are trying to transfer them to Kabul,” he said.
On Saturday, large crowds gathered to bury the white-shrouded victims in a mass grave in the southern city of Kandahar.
The head of Kandahar police said units would be assigned to protect the Shia mosques which have so far been guarded by local volunteer forces with special permission to carry weapons.
“Unfortunately they could not protect this area and in future we will assign special security guards for the protection of mosques and Madrasas,” he said in a statement posted on Twitter by a Taliban spokesman.
The attack on the Fatima mosque, the largest Shia mosque in Kandahar, also known as the Imam Bargah mosque, came a week after a similar attack on a mosque in the northern city of Kunduz, which martyred as many as 150 people.
Attacks on Shia mosques and targets associated with the Hazara ethnic minority, who make up the biggest Shia group in Afghanistan, were regular occurrences under the former Western-backed government.
There has been deep shock as the attacks have continued since the Taliban seized power in August,

tarnishing the movement’s claim to have brought peace to Afghanistan after decades of war.
Since the takeover, Daesh has conducted dozens of operations, from small scale attacks on Taliban targets to large-scale operations such as Friday’s terrorist bombing, martyring scores of civilians.
The pledge by the Taliban came after global condemnation of the new attack poured in, with calls for swift action to prevent attacks on Shia Muslims.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah said the attacks require that Afghanistan’s current authorities assume their responsibility and arrest those behind them and mete out due punishment to prevent them from committing new crimes.
The resistance group also called for measures to secure mosques and worshipers, and not leave them “an easy target to be preyed upon by human wolves left behind by the United States to sow havoc and destruction in Afghanistan to avenge its failure after a long occupation.”
Egypt’s Al-Azhar University expressed its “strong condemnation of the treacherous terrorist bombings” in Kandahar, saying those who kill worshipers in God’s homes have “sold their religion for a cheap price in the world, and that they will receive their fullest punishment in the hereafter.”
It emphasized that “harping on the differences of Islamic sects, and exploiting them to shed blood and intimidate the innocent is a betrayal of the teachings of Islam.”
“The pioneers of sedition in the fields of politics exploit the differences among schools of Islamic thought to sow discord and strife among Muslims. They forget that these Islamic sects have lived side by side under Islam for more than 14 centuries,” it added.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the terrorist attack in Kandahar was aimed at fueling religious rift and political conflict in Afghanistan.
“This is not the first terrorist attack targeting Shia Muslims in Afghanistan after the Taliban movement came to power. Obviously, the organizers of such actions aim to incite religious discord and escalate the internal political conflict,” she said.
Qais Khazali, secretary general of Iraq’s Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq resistance movement, called on the international community, particularly Muslim countries, to take immediate action to stop massacre of Shias in Afghanistan.
Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, a subdivision of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) or Hashd al-Sha’abi, also called on Afghanistan to emulate the anti-terror movement in the Arab country to stop the takfiri scourge.
In a post on his Twitter account, its secretary general Abu Ala al-Walai said “issuing statements will not help stop bloodshed” against Shias in Afghanistan.
“We have experience in this field and therefore we advise them to organize their affairs, raise the level of caution and warning, and especially try to reproduce the experience of Hashd al-Sha’abi,” he added.