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3 killed, 25 injured in blast at mosque near Afghan interior ministry, casualty likely to rise

Relatives and medical staff shift a wounded girl from an ambulance outside a hospital in Kabul following a blast  (AFP)

He said that the explosion took place at a distance from the ministry of interior, where visitors, employees pray.

"The explosion took place in a mosque which is at a distance from the ministry of interior, where visitors and some of the employees of the ministry pray," he said.

Though, an indication of casualty figures or the exact distance from ministry grounds is not given, but investigation was ongoing.

The blast in Afghanistan comes after a suicide bombing on Friday killed 53 people in a Kabul classroom, including 46 girls and women, according to a UN death toll.

Witnesses said the attacker blew himself up in the women's section of a gender-segregated classroom of a study hall in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood -- an enclave of the historically oppressed Shiite Hazara community.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for that attack.

However the jihadist group Islamic State which considers Shiites heretics has carried out several deadly attacks in the same area targeting girls, schools and mosques.

The Taliban were also accused of plotting attacks on the Hazara community as they waged a two decade insurgency against the old US-led regime which collapsed last August.

The hardcore Islamists' return to power in Afghanistan last year brought an end to that insurgency and a dramatic decline in violence.

The Taliban movement -- made up primarily of ethnic Pashtuns -- has pledged to protect minorities and clamp down on security threats.

However attacks have ramped up in recent months.

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