Thousands attend funeral of Afghan minister

The Minister for Refugees and Repatriation, Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani, was killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul

SARANA:

Thousands of Afghans on Thursday attended the funeral of the refugees minister, AFP journalists saw, after he was killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul the day before in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

The Minister for Refugees and Repatriation, Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani, was killed on Wednesday afternoon in a suicide bombing at the ministry's offices in the Afghan capital.

Thousands of men, many of them armed, gathered for Haqqani's funeral in his home village of Sarana, in a mountainous area of Paktia province, south of Kabul.

The funeral included heavy security, with armoured vehicles, snipers and personnel manning the area and the road from Kabul, which was jammed with hundreds of cars as mourners travelled from surrounding provinces.

Senior Taliban officials, including the Chief of Army Staff Qari Fasihuddin Fitrat, and Maulawi Abdul Kabir, political deputy of the prime minister's office, attended the funeral, according to an AFP team on site.

Haqqani, the highest ranked member of the Taliban government to be killed in an attack since their return to power, "was a big loss for us, the system and the nation", said Paktia resident Hedayatullah, 22.

"May God protect our other leaders and keep them victorious."

"Our leader... who had his life brutally taken away, achieved martyrdom," said Bostan, 53, haranguing the "cowardly attack" that killed Haqqani. The United Nations mission in Afghanistan condemned the attack on Thursday, offering condolences to the victims' families.

"There can be no place for terrorism in the quest for stability," the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said on X.

The European Union and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation also condemned the attack, along with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran.