A prominent pro-Taliban preacher and more than a dozen people were murdered in a bombing outside a mosque in the western Afghan city of Herat.
According to Al-Jazeera, the explosion occurred in the Guzargah Mosque in Herat during Friday lunchtime prayers.
No organization or person has taken ownership of the attack.
"Mujib Rahman Ansari, with several of his guards and citizens, have been slain on their approach into the mosque," Herat Police Spokesperson Mahmood Rasoli informed reporters.
Although the police spokesman declined to confirm the number of victims from the explosion, witnesses on the site reported that 15 people had perished.
Abdul Nafi Takor, a Taliban spokesman, was also believed to have acknowledged the explosion on Friday, stating that there were fatalities and injuries but withholding additional information.
According to accounts, the dead, Mujib Rahman Ansari, had vehemently defended the Taliban during a sizable assembly of thousands of academics and elders hosted by the organization in late June, denouncing anybody who stood in opposition to their rule.
Security professionals thought that the event could have been a targeted killing.