KABUL – A gunman stormed a mosque in western Afghanistan and killed six people, a government spokesman said on April 30.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said that on April 29 at around 9pm, “an unknown armed person shot at civilian worshippers in a mosque” in Herat province’s Guzara district.

“Six civilians were martyred and one civilian was injured,” he wrote on social media platform X early on April 30.

The state-run Bakhtar News Agency gave the same death toll for the attack, which took place in a district just south of the provincial capital of Herat city.

Citing local sources, domestic media channel Tolo reported that the mosque belonged to Afghanistan’s minority Shi’ite community.

While no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, the regional chapter of terror group ISIS is the largest security threat in Afghanistan and has frequently targeted Shi’ite communities.

The Taliban government has pledged to protect religious and ethnic minorities since returning to power in August 2021, but rights monitors say it has done little to make good on that promise.

The most notorious attack linked to ISIS since the Taliban takeover was in 2022, when at least 53 people – including 46 girls and young women – were slain in a suicide bombing at an education centre.

Taliban officials blamed ISIS for the attack, which was staged in a Shi’ite neighbourhood of Kabul.

Kabul’s new rulers claim to have ousted ISIS from Afghanistan and are highly sensitive to suggestions that the group has found safe haven in the country since the withdrawal of foreign forces.

The Taliban authorities have frequently given death tolls lower than other sources after bombings and gun attacks, in an apparent attempt to downplay security threats.

A United Nations Security Council report released in January said there had been a decrease in ISIS attacks in Afghanistan because of “counter-terrorism efforts by the Taliban”.

But the report said ISIS still had “substantial” recruitment in the country and that the militant group had “the ability to project a threat into the region and beyond”.

The ISIS chapter spanning Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia claimed responsibility for the March attack at the Crocus City Hall concert venue in Moscow, where more than 140 people were killed.

It was the deadliest attack in Russia in two decades. AFP