Taliban government refugee minister killed in suicide attack in Kabul

This is the first attack targeting a minister since the Taliban returned to power in 2021. The Afghan Minister of Refugees and Repatriation, Khalil Rahman Haqqani, was killed on Wednesday, December 11, in the premises of his ministry in Kabul, in a suicide attack attributed by the government to the Islamic State (IS) organization. The spokesperson for the Taliban government deplored “a cowardly attack” carried out, according to him, by the IS group, saluting a “great fighter” who “fell as a martyr”. The explosion, which was not claimed, “took place at the ministry,” a government source told Agence France-Presse (AFP), specifying that it was a suicide attack. “We can confirm that Minister Khalil Rahman Haqqani lost his life,” as well as “other colleagues,” added this source, without counting them. Security forces sealed off the area where the ministry is located, in the center of the Afghan capital, AFP journalists noted. On the X platform, the ministry’s account indicates that training workshops were held there in recent days. The official building also receives daily many war-displaced people who come to demand help or progress in their resettlement file in the country, which still has more than three million people. Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers “The crime of the Afghan women? To be a woman. Their fault? Exist”: the presidents of Parliament, spokespersons for the oppressed Read later The minister – who never appeared without an automatic weapon in his hand – was the uncle of the influential Minister of the Interior, Sirajuddin Haqqani. Khalil Rahman Haqqani was targeted by US and UN sanctions, according to whom he was 58 years old. His brother, Jalaluddin Haqqani, founded the powerful Haqqani network, accused of having committed some of the most violent attacks perpetrated by the Taliban in Afghanistan during the years which separated their two reigns between 2001 and 2021. The Islamic State still active The Haqqani clan is known to be engaged in a struggle for influence within the Taliban authorities. It opposes, according to press information, on the one hand, the supporters of an ultra-rigorous application of Islam following the line of the supreme leader of the Taliban installed in Kandahar and on the other, a group presented as more pragmatic, Kabul. Since the Taliban authorities returned to power in 2021, the number of attacks has decreased in Afghanistan but jihadists and the regional branch of the Islamic State group in Khorasan (IS-K) continue to carry out attacks, notably against officials and buildings of the Taliban authorities. In Kabul, explosions resound regularly and although local sources report them, Taliban officials rarely confirm these attacks. At the end of October, a child was killed and around ten people injured in an explosive attack carried out on a market in the city center. In September, IS claimed responsibility for a suicide attack that left six people dead and thirteen injured in front of the offices of the general prosecutor’s office in Kabul. The group claimed to “avenge the Muslims held in Taliban prisons”, who regularly announce that they have arrested or killed members of the jihadist group – while at the same time ensuring that they have put an end to the threat of ISIS in the country. Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers The UN advocates the reintegration of Afghanistan from the Taliban into the international community Read later Le Monde with AFP Reuse this content



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