Twin bomb blasts at Afghan shrines on the Shia holy day of Ashura have left at least 58 people dead in Kabul and the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
A suicide bomber attacked a Shia Muslim shrine in central Kabul, where hundreds of people had gathered to celebrate the holy day.
A spokesman for the ministry of health said the death toll in Kabul had ''reached 54 and number of wounded 160, some of them in critical condition".
Shortly after the Kabul blast, a bicycle bomb exploded near the main mosque in northern Mazar, killing four and injuring 17 others.
The city's streets were filled with people celebrating Ashura, but it was not immediately clear if that attack was targeting Shia worshippers.
A motorbike bomb in southern Kandahar city also injured three civilians, but it had not been placed near any mosques or shrines, and appeared unrelated to the Kabul attacks.
The Shia Muslim festival of Ashura marks the martyrdom of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson Hussein in the battle of Karbala in Iraq in the year 680.
