The Islamic State Khorasan Group has claimed responsibility of the attack on Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul, while Pakistan’s Foreign Office has said it is confirming the reports about the claims.
IS claimed the attack was carried by two of its members armed with “medium and sniper weapons” and was targeting the ambassador and his guards who were present at the courtyard of the embassy.
On Friday, the embassy compound came under fire from a lone gunman holed up in a nearby building. The security guard was critically injured while protecting the mission head, Chargé d’Affaires to Afghanistan Ubaidur Rehman Nizamani, who remained unhurt. One suspect has been arrested and two firearms recovered from him.
The Afghan foreign ministry has given assurances of an investigation into the attempted assassination of the Pakistani diplomat and punishment of those behind it.
The Foreign Office (FO) has said that it was “verifying the veracity of reports” claiming that outlawed Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-KP) had accepted responsibility for attacking the Pakistan embassy in Kabul.
“We have seen reports that IS-KP has accepted responsibility for the terrorist attack on the Pakistan Embassy compound on 2 December 2022.” “Independently and in consultation with the Afghan authorities, we are verifying the veracity of these reports,” the FO spokesperson said in a statement.
After all, during the months leading up to its takeover of Kabul, the Afghan Taliban in parleys with the international community reiterated their commitment to crack down on militant groups on its soil and prevent any cross-border attacks.
Aside from their ideological commonalities with such groups, Afghanistan’s new rulers may have calculated that following through on its commitment to act against them risked the regime being seen as kowtowing to the West, a perception that could push its supporters towards the self-styled Islamic State, the Taliban’s only real rival on the militant landscape in their country.
The duration of the Afghan Taliban’s regime has thus seen a marked escalation in cross-border attacks by the TTP and other terrorist groups that have taken shelter inside Afghanistan, as well as border clashes between security personnel on both sides. The ill-fated ‘negotiations’ that the Taliban facilitated have unsurprisingly broken down, with the TTP calling for an all-out war on the Pakistani state.
