KANDAHAR, June 1: After a sombre service, the mourners filed quietly out of the mosque in Afghanistan’s southern city of Kandahar and went to put on the shoes they had removed outside the mosque.

Among the hundreds of people who had paid their respects to a prominent anti-Taliban leader assassinated at the weekend was the police chief of Kabul, Gen Akram Khakraizwall.

“As soon as Khakraizwall came out of the mosque into the yard outside, a man in police uniform approached him and pretended to be preparing the police chief’s shoes for him to put on,” witness Mohammad Afzal, 35, said.

“That was when he detonated his bomb. It was a terribly big explosion which ripped through the mosque. It partially damaged the mosque and even the big tent installed in the mosque yard was also on fire.” he added.

“The explosion killed Khakraizwall and his bodyguards and people around him,” he added.

It was not the first time that the mosque, named after the father of the assassinated leader, Maulvi Abdullah Fayyaz.

Two years ago a bomb exploded there, injuring Maulvi Fayyaz, who was gunned down on Sunday after recently speaking out against Taliban leader Mullah Omar.—AFP