The Afghan Minister for Refugees , Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani was killed on Wednesday in a suicide bombing at the ministry’s office in Kabul, government sources said.
The Islamic State , IS, group claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Taliban had an already blamed IS for the “cowardly attack,” which a government official told AFP resulted in the deaths of Minister Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani and several of his colleagues. The official further stated that the explosion, the first targeting a minister since the Taliban regained control in 2021, was caused by a suicide blast.
IS later released a photo of the bomber, claiming he detonated an explosive vest after “penetrating the security barriers inside the headquarters.” This was stated in a release by IS’s Amaq news agency, translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government spokesperson, paid tribute to Haqqani, honoring him as a “great fighter” who “fell as a martyr.” Roads leading to the ministry were blocked by Taliban authorities, with security personnel stationed on nearby rooftops. The ministry’s X account stated that training workshops had been recently conducted at the facility.
The ministry’s corridors are usually crowded with displaced people seeking assistance or following up on resettlement cases in a country still home to over three million displaced persons.
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Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani, often seen with an automatic weapon, was the brother of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the founder of the notorious Haqqani network, which carried out some of the deadliest attacks during the Taliban’s two-decade insurgency. He was also the uncle of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the current interior minister. His nephew, Anas Haqqani, praised Khalil Ur-Rahman, stating he had “reached the highest level of martyrdom” and condemned his killing by “those who apparently claim to follow the blessed religion of Islam,” in a post on X.
Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani, 58, had been on US and UN sanctions lists, with the US offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his whereabouts. Several senior Taliban figures have been killed since the group’s return to power, many of them in attacks claimed by IS.
Though violence has decreased since the Taliban took control in 2021, the Islamic State Khorasan, IS-K, the regional branch of IS, remains active in Afghanistan, regularly targeting civilians, foreigners, and Taliban officials with bombings and shootings. In Kabul, explosions are common, but while local sources report them, they are rarely confirmed by the Taliban authorities.
At the end of October, a child was killed and about 10 people were wounded in a bomb attack on a Kabul market.
In November, IS claimed responsibility for a gun attack that killed 10 at a Sufi shrine in northern Baghlan province. Despite frequent announcements by the Taliban authorities regarding the arrests or deaths of IS members, they continue to insist that the IS threat has been eliminated in the country.
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