Two people died and 14 others were wounded when a bomb explosion hit a mosque during Friday prayers in northern Afghanistan, police said. The bomb, attached to a motorcycle parked inside the mosque compound in the town of Almar, Faryab province, went off as hundreds of people were leaving the main weekly prayer session, provincial police chief Sayed Mohammad Samey said.
"Two people have been killed and 14 others injured as a result of the bomb explosion in the mosque," Samey told AFP, adding that all the victims were civilians. The target of the attack was not immediately clear but it took place minutes after the district police chief left the mosque, Samey said.
Afghan police and soldiers are frequently targeted by the Taliban and other insurgents. In a separate incident Friday, an elderly woman was killed in the western city of Herat when a handcart exploded. The blast also injured seven civilians, the interior ministry added in a statement.
The Taliban, leaders of a decade-long insurgency against President Hamid Karzai's government and the 140,000-strong foreign force in Afghanistan, were not immediately contactable for comment. Some coalition combat troops have already started leaving Afghanistan ahead of a deadline for them all to leave by the end of 2014.
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