Terrorism Security Religious Freedom Civilian deaths ISKP

ISKP-claimed attack against Sufis in Baghlan

Afghan Witness

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Afghan Witness

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Ten worshippers killed in evening assault on Sufi shrine by multiple attackers

On 22 November 2024, several Afghan news agencies reported an attack against Sufis, carried out the previous day at the Sayed Padshah Agha shrine in Shahr-e Kuhna, Nahrin district, Baghlan province. According to a statement by the Baghlan Taliban Police Command Press Office, unidentified men entered the shrine in the evening and “brutally martyred” ten worshippers gathered inside.

Afghan media agencies Etilaatroz and Nedaey Baloch shared a [WARNING: GRAPHIC] video and photos claiming to show the aftermath of the attack.

From the content, AW visually confirmed the presence of ten bodies; nine inside the building and one outside. Images from the inside of the shrine showed likely gunfire damage, both to the wall and to the victims, as seen in Figure 1 below. The location and height of where the bullets hit the wall indicate the gunmen attacked the individuals as they were sitting or kneeling on the ground, possibly whilst praying.

Figure 1: Photo claiming to show the aftermath of the attack. Bullet damage to the wall (pink), and likely bullet wound(s) to a victim’s leg (blue). Further wounds in the image are censored for graphic content.

Sayed Orfan Barzgar, an Afghan social media user, shared the following list on X, claiming to contain the details of six of the victims, and photos of five:

  1. Shah Dur Mohammad, about 60 years old, from Bashqala village
  2. Qari Shir Mohammad, 37, from Shahr-e Kuhna, Nahrin
  3. Javed, 26-year-old, from Shindara village
  4. Aziz, 45 years old, from Shahr-e Kuhna, Nahrin
  5. Noorullah, from Nowabad Shahr-e Kuhna, Nahrin
  6. Noor Ahmed, 25 years old, from Baghalak, Shahr-e kuhna

Although AW cannot confirm the identity of the victims, Mukhtar Wafayee, an Afghan journalist for The Independent Persian, also reported the killing of Shah Dur Mohammad, highly likely to be a caretaker of the Sufi shrine.

Arrests of alleged perpetrators and ISKP claim

According to Ariana News, reporting on 22 November 2024, Baghlan Police Security Commander Abdul Ghayoor Khadim claimed that several people had been arrested in connection with the incident, but did not provide further details regarding the number of individuals arrested, or the reason behind the attack.

On 23 November 2024, the Islamic State officially claimed responsibility for the attack via its Telegram channel with a statement published in Arabic:

“10 killed from the polytheistic (Saifia) sect in an attack on a polytheistic shrine in (Baghlan) … By the grace of Allah Almighty, the soldiers of the Caliphate attacked a polytheistic shrine visited by followers of the polytheistic Saifia sect, including members of the apostate Taliban, in Shahr-e Kuhna of Nahrin, in Baghlan, the day before yesterday, and targeted them with machine guns, which led to the killing of 10 apostates and the injury of others, praise be to Allah.”

Figure 2: ISKP statement claiming responsibility for the attack against Saifia worshippers in Baghlan.

On 30 November 2024, Al-Naba weekly published a photo claiming to show the Sufi worshippers inside the shrine prior to the attack. Although it is not possible to establish when the photo was taken, AW assesses that the layout of the room matched the photos shared online with the victim’s bodies, as seen in Figure 3 below.

Figure 3: Comparison between the layout of the room where the bodies were found (left), and the photo shared by Al-Naba taken before the attack (right).

The pre-attack images suggest a recon mission to the shrine before the operation, or that the attack had been documented by ISKP. AW has observed similar situations in the past months, where ISKP documents its own attacks in detail to support future propaganda efforts.

Most recently, ISKP claimed an attack against a group of Hazaras on the border of Ghor and Daykundi provinces, and released photos afterwards indicating that the group had filmed its own operation.

Attacks against Sufis in Afghanistan

Saifia (also spelled Saifiya) is a Sufi order established by Akhundzada Peer Saif ur-Rahman Mubarak (1925–2010), a renowned Sufi scholar originally from Nangarhar, Afghanistan. It has a following in Pakistan, various regions of Afghanistan (including Kabul, as well as eastern and northern Afghanistan), and several other countries.

On 14 May 2021, ISKP claimed responsibility for an explosion that targeted and killed Mufti Numan Fazli, a Saifi Sufi, and 11 followers during Friday prayer in Shakar Dara district, Kabul. At the time, ISKP did not specify Fazli’s affiliation with any particular Sufi order in their claim, referring to him only as a Sufi leader.

Between August 2021 and November 2024, AW logged four attacks against Sufis, three in Kabul, and one in Kunduz. All the attacks took place between April and October 2022 and remain unclaimed. Despite ISKP’s attribution of Sufi believers as polytheists, the incident in Baghlan is the first targeted attack against Sufi worshippers in the past two years, and the first claimed by ISKP since the beginning of the Taliban’s current control of Afghanistan.

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