Taliban refugee minister Khalil Haqqani has been killed in a suicide bombing inside Kabul’s interior ministry. This is the most damaging incident in Afghanistan since the Taliban took power in 2021.
Interior Ministry sources said six other people were killed in the explosion as Haqqani was leaving his office.
Khalil Haqqani was a top member of a powerful faction within the Taliban called the Haqqani network and was designated a global terrorist by the United States.
Islamic State (IS) later claimed responsibility for the attack.
According to a report published by IS’s ‘news agency’ Amaq, IS militants waited outside the minister’s office and detonated explosives as he left.
A Taliban spokesman confirmed that Haqqani was killed by IS, Reuters reported.
Khalil Haqqani’s brother Jalaluddin was a famous guerrilla leader who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and founded the Haqqani network, which was behind many attacks during the Taliban’s two-decade insurgency.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, the minister’s nephew and Jalaluddin’s son, is currently the Taliban government’s interior minister.
The overall security situation in Afghanistan has improved since the Taliban took full control with the complete withdrawal of foreign troops in 2021, but dozens of bombings and suicide attacks continue to occur in the country every year.
Many people have argued that: Islamic State Khorasan ProvinceAlternatively, ISKP is a local affiliate of the so-called Islamic State group, the Taliban’s main rival.
