A suicide bomber has caused at least six deaths this Monday afternoon in Kabul, by triggering his explosive charge near the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. A clinic run by an Italian NGO says it has received a dozen injured - including a child - and acknowledges two deaths. The Afghan channel Tolonews later raised the provisional death toll to six.
Several witnesses speak of a strong explosion near the armored area that houses several official buildings. The Taliban Foreign Ministry, which was already the target of an attack earlier this year, is surrounded by the National Security Directorate, the Ministry of Economy and the Chinese embassy, right in the center of Kabul.
The attack, which has not yet been claimed, comes just hours after Emirate intelligence claimed to have headed several Islamic State cells in northern Afghanistan, in different operations in recent weeks.
The area of the attack today was especially crowded, since the officials finish their day earlier to be able to get home before iftar, the family dinner with which they break the fast during the month of Ramadan.
The Taliban have increased the number of operations against the self-styled Islamic State after the suicide attack on March 9 that killed the governor of Balkh, a senior member of the Taliban, and two other people at a work meeting.
Last January, at least five people died in a suicide attack at the gates of the Foreign Ministry, at the time when Emirate officials left work. No country officially recognizes its diplomats, but some countries have begun to treat them as such. Thus, earlier this month, the Afghan legations in Tehran and Istanbul were discreetly occupied by diplomats and officials sent by the Taliban, with the connivance of the host government, replacing the employees of the government ousted in August 2021.
