A bombing attack on a Shiite mosque in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz killed a large number of people during Friday prayers, according to footage on social media, local residents and Taliban officials.

The explosion took place at around 1 p.m. at the Sayedabad street near the provincial governor’s office, witnesses said. Dozens were killed and dozens more were injured in the bombing, witnesses said.

“It’s...

A bombing attack on a Shiite mosque in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz killed a large number of people during Friday prayers, according to footage on social media, local residents and Taliban officials.

The explosion took place at around 1 p.m. at the Sayedabad street near the provincial governor’s office, witnesses said. Dozens were killed and dozens more were injured in the bombing, witnesses said.

“It’s a total disaster here,” said Kunduz resident Hafizullah, who lives near the mosque. “All the windows of houses close to the mosque have been shattered and I see pieces of flesh on the street.”

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a tweet that the movement’s special forces have arrived on the scene of the Kunduz explosion to start investigating after “a number of our compatriots were martyred and injured.”

While there was no immediate claim of responsibility, Islamic State’s regional affiliate has carried out a series of attacks targeting the country’s Shiite community in recent years. The group, Islamic State-Khorasan Province, or ISKP, has organized a series of attacks since the U.S. withdrawal in August, targeting Taliban officials at a mosque in Kabul last Sunday.

While the Taliban and ISKP both seek to implement strict Islamic rules in Afghanistan, the two groups have profound religious and political differences. Though the Taliban persecuted Shiites when they ruled the country in the 1990s, their current government includes a member of the Hazara Shiite community as a deputy minister. Islamic State, by contrast, views all Shiite Muslims as heretics who should be exterminated.

This is a developing story and will update.

—Zamir Saar and Jalaludin Nazari contributed to this article.

Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com