The Taliban fundamentalist movement has finally confirmed that at least 23 people were killed in Thursday’s attack outside the Foreign Ministry headquarters in the Afghan capital, Kabul, officials from the ministry told Afghan broadcaster Amu TV on condition of anonymity.
The dead are former employees of the Ministry and among the wounded, about twenty, there are four Taliban, according to the same source.
The Taliban are reluctant as a rule to give specific death tolls in attacks such as this one, for which the Islamic State jihadist organization once again claimed responsibility in its sixth major attack in the last 50 days.
Faced with this lack of transparency, other sources such as the former Foreign Ministry spokesman and now spokesman for the so-called anti-Taliban resistance of Panshir, Sibghatullah Ahmadi, spoke on Twitter of at least 50 dead and wounded in the attack, before denouncing that Taliban security guards opened fire on employees of the Ministry who were trying to leave the place. The Taliban have not commented on these allegations.
Nine hours after the attack, Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, a suicide bombing intended to «disrupt a meeting between the Taliban and foreign diplomats».
In fact, Amu TV sources close to the Ministry confirmed that, shortly before the explosion, a delegation of the UN mission in the country, UNAMA, headed by the envoy Markus Potzel, was present at the Ministry to meet the Taliban deputy foreign minister, Sher Mohamad Abbas Stanikzai.
According to these sources, the explosion occurred only five minutes after Stanikzai left the building. The UNAMA delegation left the compound fifteen minutes before the detonation.
According to the NGO Emergency, which usually reports transfers to hospitals of victims of such attacks, this is the first «mass casualty incident» since the beginning of the year. In 2022, the NGO attended at least 29 such events.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
