Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani, Afghan Minister for Refugees, was killed this Wednesday, December 11 with “other colleagues” by a suicide bomber in his ministry in Kabul. Her brother had founded “Haqqani”, a powerful network accused of having committed ultraviolent attacks between 2001 and 2021.
This is the first attack to aim for a minister since the Taliban's return to power in 2021. This Wednesday, December 11, the Afghan Minister for Refugees, Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani, was killed by a suicide bomber in his ministry, in Kabul. Other people have been killed and injured, but for the moment, no official assessment has been published. The Taliban government spokesman has deplored “A loose attack” led by the Islamic State, welcoming the Minister as a “Great fighter”, “Fallen into a martyr”. He also told CBS News that the assailant had disguised himself as a visitor, claiming to suffer from a physical handicap, before targeting Haqqani with his explosive device while the minister was preparing to make his prayer. In the evening, IS claimed the terrorist attack.
The whole district where the ministry is in the center of the Afghan capital was completed by the security forces. On its X account, the ministry indicates that training workshops have been standing in recent days in its premises. Daily, the corridors of the ministry are also traveled by many displaced people who arise to claim aid or the progress of a resettlement file in the country which has more than three million displaced war.
Haqqani network
The murdered minister – who never appears without an automatic weapon in his hand – is the uncle of the influential Minister of the Interior, Sirajuddin Haqqani. Afghan Minister Jalaluddin Haqqani had founded the powerful Haqqani network, accused of having committed some of the most violent attacks perpetrated by the Taliban in Afghanistan during the years that separated their two reigns between 2001 and 2021. Since the Taliban authorities returned to power in 2021, the number of attacks decreased in Afghanistan but jihadists and the regional branch of the Islamic State group in Khorassan (EI-K) continue to carry out attacks, especially against officials and Buildings of the Taliban authorities, but also civilians and foreign nationals. His attacks are largely perceived as an attempt to undermine the Taliban regime.
In Kabul, explosions occur regularly. If local sources report them, Taliban officials rarely confirm these attacks. At the end of October, a child was killed and a dozen people injured in an explosive attack on a city center market. IS had also claimed in September a suicide attack which had left 6 dead and 13 injured in front of the premises of the general prosecutor's office in Kabul. The group assured “Avenge Muslims retained in the prisons of the Taliban”which regularly announce to stop or kill members of the jihadist group – while ensuring at the same time having finished with the EI threat in the country.
More broadly, the sudden fall in the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria raises security questions in the region. The question arises all the more since the leader of the rebel group HTS who came to power, Ahmed al-Charaa (Abu-Mohammed al-Joulani of his war name) is himself an ex-jihadist who passed through American prisons in Iraq and the ranks of the Islamic State. The end of the Assad dictatorship therefore opens up a period of uncertainty, letting fear a possible terrorist resurgence. Tuesday, December 10, the French National Prosecutor of French (PNAT), Olivier Christen, was reassuring but also very cautious on RTL: “We have not set up a notch in anxiety, we are vigilant because as soon as there is a moving geopolitical situation […]. We know from experience that these tensions can have repercussions on what is called the jihadosphere. ”
Updated at 9:27 p.m. with the claim of the Islamic State.
