Afghanistan: Deadly blast hits Kunduz mosque during Friday prayers

A powerful explosion has hit a mosque in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz during Friday prayers, killing at least six people, officials say.

Images posted on social media said to be of the aftermath of the blast show extensive damage in the mosque, used by the minority Shia Muslim community.

The death toll is expected to rise.

Sunni Muslim extremists have often targeted members of the Shia community in the past because they consider them to be heretics.

In a short statement posted to Twitter, a Taliban spokesman said a number of people had been killed and injured.

A doctor in Kunduz told the BBC at least six deaths had been reported at a private hospital.

No group has said it was behind the explosion. But IS-K, a franchise of the wider Islamic State group, has repeatedly targeted Afghanistan's Shia minority in the past.

The group, which is violently opposed to the Taliban, has carried out several bombings in the country recently, largely in the east of the country.

The continuation of violence in the country, even after the Taliban takeover in August, has been met with dismay by ordinary Afghans, BBC Afghanistan correspondent Secunder Kermani reports.

The Taliban took control of Afghanistan after foreign forces withdrew from the country following a deal between the US and the Taliban, two decades after US forces removed the militants from power in 2001.