From Mona Wardag
KABUL: Militants involved in the attack on the Pakistani embassy in Kabul and a separate attack on a hotel targeting Chinese nationals were killed, said Afghan Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid on Thursday confirming details of an operation that “eliminated a group of ISKP in Kabul and Nimroz provinces”.
Earlier in December, a Pakistani security guard had been wounded by shots fired at the Pakistan embassy in the Af-ghan capital, in what Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had called “an assassination attempt” on the head of the mission Ubaidur Rehman Nizamani, who remained safe.
The following day, the outlawed Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack. In a statement cited by ji-hadist monitor SITE, the IS’ Khorasan chapter had said it had “attacked the Pakistani ambassador and his guards”.
According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on December 4, “we have seen reports that the IS-KP has accepted responsibility for the terrorist attack on the Pakistan Embassy compound on December 2, 2022.”
The statement said, “independently and in consultation with the Afghan authorities, we are verifying the veracity of these reports.”
Meanwhile, on December 12, armed men had opened fire inside a hotel in central Kabul popular with Chinese nation-als. Beijing had later confirmed that five of its nationals were wounded in the attack. Zabihullah Mujahid, in a statement issued yesterday, said that the security forces of the Taliban administration had carried out operations against a “dangerous and important network” of Daesh (Islamic State) on Wednesday.
The spokesman confirmed that eight members of the militant group, including foreign nationals, were killed in the op-eration, while seven others were arrested and that the Daesh members were involved in both of the aforementioned attacks.
A female IS-KP member was also reportedly arrested during the operation. However, Mujahid refrained from sharing the details of the militant’s nationalities “for security purposes”. “The scores of suspects arrested have been relocated for investigation,” Mujahid told local media.
Furthermore, he said that the slain militants had also been planning more attacks on “several other important places”. “They planned to bring in Daesh members from other countries to Afghanistan and carry out widespread coordinated attacks,” he added, claiming that the “group was the most lethal”.
The spokesperson went on to state that three “hideouts” had been “destroyed” during the operation conducted in the Shuda-e-Saliheen and Qalacha areas as well as Zaranj, the capital of Nimroz province. “A large number of small arms, hand grenades, mines, suicide vests and explosives were obtained,” he said.
