Over 40 dead in two suicide attacks on Afghan mosques

Kabul: More than 40 people were killed when suicide bombers blew themselves up in two separate mosque attacks in Afghanistan on Friday, officials said, in the latest violence to rock the country.

In the first attack, on a mosque in the Afghan capital Kabul, at least 32 people including women and children were killed and 41 others wounded when a lone suicide bomber blew himself up as worshippers gathered for evening prayer.

"Unfortunately this evening a suicide bomber detonated himself among the worshippers inside a mosque in Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood of Kabul city," Kabul police spokesman Abdul Basir Mujahid told AFP.

The interior ministry confirmed the toll of 32 dead and 41 wounded.

Police initially said a gunman entered the Imam Zaman mosque in the west of the city and opened fire on worshippers.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bloody attack but recent assaults on mosques in Afghanistan have been carried out by Daesh militants.

In the second assault, a suicide bomber detonated himself in a mosque in the impoverished and remote central province of Ghor, killing at least 10 people.

A senior local police commander, who is believed to have been the target of the attack in Dolaina district, was among the dead, district governor Mohsen Danishyar told AFP.

Danishyar put the death toll as high as 30 but Ghor provincial governor Naser Khazeh told AFP that he could only confirm 10 deaths.

Interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said at least 15 people were killed and five were injured in the Ghor assault.