A bomb explosion in a mosque killed about 20 persons in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar on Wednesday morning.

Those killed include a police chief of Kabul who were attending a mourning ceremony for the killed Muslim leader, a local radio reported.

The ceremony was held in a mosque at about 9:00 a.m. (local time) Wednesday to show condolence for Monday's killing of Muslim leader Mawlavi Abdullah Fayaz in Kandahar.

About 20 persons were killed and more than 30 injured in the explosion, Radio Liberty reported.

The police chief of Kabul attending the ceremony in Kandahar has also been killed in the explosion, when the suicide attacker exploded the bomb beside him.

But a local witness Ahmad Shah told Xinhua the number of the dead was above 50.

As the chairman of Islamic Scholar Council, Fayaz is famous for his strong attitude against Taliban, frequently delivering speeches in the mosque about getting rid of Taliban from Afghanistan.

Ousted from power in 2001, Taliban has staged another surge of attacks against civilian and military targets in Afghanistan as the weather gets warmer here. More than 30 Afghan and US troops, aid workers as well as the militants have been killed in the troubled southern provinces over the past two weeks.

Source: Xinhua