After an explosion in a mosque in Kabul on Wednesday evening, numerous fatalities are feared.

The incident happened in the north of the Afghan capital during evening prayers, police spokesman Khalid Zadran confirmed.

Accordingly, there are no official death figures.

"Security forces are on their way and the incident is being investigated," Zadran said.

Other sources report at least 20 dead and 40 others injured.

The imam of the mosque is said to be among the dead.

However, none of this information has been confirmed.

So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the incident.

Since the Taliban regained power in August 2021, most of the attacks have come from the Islamic State (IS).

Mawlawi Mahdi shot dead

Meanwhile, the Taliban have killed one of their former leaders.

Mawlawi Mahdi was shot while trying to escape near the border with Iran, the Defense Ministry in Kabul said on Wednesday.

A few years ago, Mahdi became the first Taliban commander to belong to the Shia Hasara minority.

It was considered proof that the radical Islamic Taliban wanted to open up to minorities.

The Taliban are Sunnis and are recruited almost exclusively from the Pashtun ethnic group.

Recently, the Taliban have been attempting to incorporate members of other ethnic groups and Shiites into their power structure.

The Hasara, whose settlement area is mainly the central mountains in Afghanistan, are the largest Shia ethnic group in the country.

After the Taliban formed a government last year, Mahdi became intelligence chief in a central province.

However, the Ministry of Defense now described him as a rebel chief in a district in the northern province of Sar-e-Pol.

A Taliban official said Mahdi had rebelled against the Taliban leadership.

Local workers are still waiting to be admitted to Germany

A year after the fall of Kabul, several hundred former Afghan local workers and their families are still hoping to be accepted into Germany.

Most of them once worked for the Bundeswehr, as now inquiries at the Foreign Office, Ministry of Development Aid, Ministry of the Interior and the Bundeswehr show.

The Bundeswehr Operations Command assumes that around 350 former local Bundeswehr personnel who are entitled to enter Germany are still in Afghanistan or neighboring countries.

A spokesman said there was no connection to 180 of them.

120 former employees and 580 relatives are still in Afghanistan, plus almost 30 former local staff with around 140 relatives who are on their way to Germany.

20 local staff were known to be in safe third countries.

More than 700 former Bundeswehr employees, including their families, are believed to be still in Afghanistan.