Taliban arrest ‘mastermind’ of terror attack on Afghan Shia mosque

Taliban officials say the mastermind behind a deadly terrorist attack targeting a Shia mosque in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif has been arrested in Balkh Province.

Asif Waziri, police spokesman of Balkh, and the Afghan Interior Ministry said on Friday that Abdul Hamid Sangaryar, an Afghan national who planned the bombing, had been taken into custody.

Waziri said Sangaryar was a key operative of the Daesh terror group in Afghanistan. “He played a key role in several attacks in the past and had repeatedly managed to escape, but this time, we arrested him in a special operation,” the police official said.

Daesh claimed the bomb blast that ripped through the Seh Dokan mosque during midday prayers in Mazar-i-Sharif on Thursday.

Reports say over 40 people have been killed and as many as 100 others injured in the terrorist attack. The Takfiri outfit also claimed another bombing in the northern city of Kunduz on Thursday, which left at least four people dead and wounded 18 others.

Daesh first showed its face in Afghanistan in 2015, when the country was suffering from chaos fueled by years of foreign invasion and militancy.

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