Anger boils as death toll mounts to 33

Thousands of Shia protesters chanted slogans against the Islamic State group yesterday as they carried the coffins of victims of a mosque attack that killed 33 people in the western Afghan city of Herat.

Up to 5,000 angry mourners, including relatives of the dead, congregated near the site of Tuesday's suicide bomb attack as IS claimed responsibility for the latest atrocity targeting the minority community.

"Death to Daesh (IS)!" and "Down with fundamentalism", the demonstrators chanted, as the coffins were brought one by one and placed in a refrigerated lorry near the Jawadya mosque.

The mourners, who were set to march to the cemetery to bury their dead, also demanded that the government bring the perpetrators to justice and pledged to "take revenge" if it did not.

Jilani Farhad, a spokesman for the governor of Herat province, said the death toll from the attack, in which two suicide bombers throwing grenades stormed the packed mosque, had risen to 33. Another 66 were wounded.

In a statement yesterday, IS's propaganda outlet Amaq claimed it had killed "around 50 Shias" and wounded 80 more in the attack, which also left young children dead.

It came a day after IS claimed a deadly assault on the Iraqi embassy in Kabul as it extends its footprint in the war-torn country.

Underscoring the nation's insecurity, a Taliban suicide bomber yesterday rammed a vehicle filled with explosives into a convoy of foreign forces in the restive southern province of Kandahar, causing an unspecified number of casualties.

"At around noon a car bomb targeted a convoy of foreign forces in the Daman area of Kandahar," provincial police spokesman Zia Durrani told AFP.

Nato confirmed in a statement that a convoy was attacked and did "cause casualties" but did not immediately give further details.

At least one witness reported seeing three bodies pulled from one of vehicles.