Six civilians were killed and several others injured in a suicide attack near the foreign ministry in Kabul on Monday, according to the Afghanistan interior ministry. The attack was the latest in a series of violent incidents by the Islamic State group, which has challenged the Taliban’s rule since they took over Afghanistan in August 2021.
The interior ministry spokesman Abdul Nafy Takor said on Twitter that Afghan forces identified and shot at the attacker in front of a business centre near the foreign ministry.
“The explosives carried by the attacker also exploded with his killing, which killed six civilians and wounded a number of others,” he said. Emergency, an Italian NGO that runs a hospital in Kabul, confirmed that it received two dead and 12 wounded, including a child.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
This was the second attack near the foreign ministry in Kabul in less than three months, and the first since Ramadan began on Thursday in Afghanistan.
On January 11, a suicide bomber detonated himself near the foreign ministry, killing 10 and wounding 53 people, as reported by the United Nations.
The Taliban authorities, who have often downplayed attacks against their government, had said that five people were killed in that attack, which was claimed by IS.
The group has carried out several attacks targeting foreigners or foreign interests in Afghanistan, aiming to undermine the Taliban government.
In December, at least five Chinese nationals were injured when gunmen attacked a hotel popular with businesspeople in Kabul.
That attack was also claimed by IS, as well as an attack on Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul in December that Islamabad condemned as an “assassination attempt” against its ambassador.
Two Russian embassy staff members were killed in a suicide bombing outside their mission in September in another attack claimed by IS.
The Taliban and IS share an austere Sunni Islamist ideology, but the latter are fighting to establish a global “caliphate” instead of the Taliban’s more inward-looking aim of ruling an independent Afghanistan.