TEHRAN -- Iran is due to
receive a group of Afghan nationals who sustained injuries during the last week’s terror attack on a Shia mosque in the southern city of Kandahar.
The officials in Kandahar said as many as 30 Afghans who were in critical condition following the Daesh-claimed attack on the Bibi Fatima mosque were being transferred by plane to Iran for treatment.
“The process is underway in coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the officials said.
At least 47 people were martyred and more than 80 others wounded on Friday after an explosion went off inside the Shia mosque in the southern Afghan city.
The blast came one week after another Shia mosque in Afghanistan’s northern city of Kunduz was targeted in a bombing during Friday prayers, leaving at least 150 people martyred and over 200 others injured.
Both tragedies were claimed by a local affiliate of the Daesh terrorist group, which has a long history of attacking Afghanistan’s Shia minority.
The Iranian embassy condemned the attacks in a tweet, saying, “We hope Taliban leaders take decisive action against these wicked terrorist incidents.”
Iran has also sent humanitarian aid to those wounded in recent terrorist attacks on mosques in the Afghan cities of Kunduz and Kandahar.
The terrorist bombings came after Taliban said they considered Daesh as a “headache” rather than a “threat,” adding that the Takfiri outfit lacks popular support in Afghanistan and would certainly very soon be “suppressed.”
The Taliban took power in Afghanistan in mid-August, as the U.S. was in the middle of a chaotic troop withdrawal from the country. The group announced the formation of a caretaker government on September 7.
The Taliban first ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, when the United States invaded the country and toppled the Taliban-run government on the pretext of fighting terrorism following the September 11 attacks in the U.S.