Afghan Taliban claim Kabul attack 'foreign conspiracy'

The Afghan Taliban on Monday claimed that a 'foreign hand was involved' in the attack on the Pakistan embassy in Kabul.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Spokesman of the Afghan Taliban and Deputy Minister of Information, Science and Culture of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), tweeted that the attacker has been arrested.

He said that the attacker is a foreign national and a member of the militant ISIS group, adding that he carried out the attack in cooperation with the 'rebels'.

Zabihullah said that foreign groups are behind the attack, with the aim of creating mistrust between the two brotherly countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan and added that further investigation is ongoing.

Read Ambassador Nizamani in Pakistan days after Kabul embassy attack

The attack

Last week, there were shots fired at the Pakistan embassy in the Afghan capital, in what Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called “an assassination attempt” on the head of the mission Ubaidur Rehman Nizamani.

A Kabul police spokesman said one suspect had been arrested and two light weapons were seized after security forces swept a nearby building “and prevented the continuation of gunfire”.

An embassy official told AFP a lone attacker “came behind the cover of houses and started firing”. “The ambassador and all the other staff are safe, but we are not going outside of the embassy building as a precaution,” he said.

The Foreign Office in Islamabad said the attack had been aimed at Nizamani, who remained safe. However, it added that a Pakistani security guard, Sepoy Israr Mohammad, was critically wounded while protecting the ambassador.

Sepoy Israr had been evacuated to Pakistan, the Foreign Office said. “The helicopter carrying the injured security guard Israr Mohammad in today’s attack on our mission in Kabul, has landed in Peshawar,” the spokesperson said.