The minister for refugees in the Taliban government in Afghanistan was killed in an explosion Wednesday at the ministry's headquarters in the capital Kabul, two senior officials with the Taliban regime told CBS News. The blast at the Refugee Ministry killed minister Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani along with at least a couple of his colleagues, officials told CBS News' Sami Yousafzai.
Haqqani was the brother of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the founder of the dreaded Haqqani network which was responsible for some of the most violent attacks during the Taliban's two-decade insurgency following a 2001 US-led invasion to overthrow on the previous government of the group.
He was also the uncle of Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is currently the interior minister of Afghanistan.
VICE KOHSAR/AFP/Getty
Violence has generally declined in Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power in the summer of 2021, when US and NATO forces pulled out in a chaotic withdrawal that remains the subject of intense scrutiny. in Washington.
The regional branch of the ISIS terrorist group, however, ISIS-Khorasan, has been active in Afghanistan and regularly targets Taliban regime officials and civilians and foreign nationals. Their attacks are largely seen as an attempt to weaken the Taliban regime.
Taliban officials told CBS News that investigations were underway to determine who carried out Wednesday's attack that killed Haqqani, who they said may have been the target of the blast.
Source link
