At least six civilians were killed in a suicide bombing near the Foreign Ministry in Kabul on Monday, the first since Ramadan began in Afghanistan.
The attacker was attacked by Afghan forces, but the explosives he was carrying “detonated, killing six civilians and injuring others,” Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Nafy said on Twitter.
An AFP correspondent said the blast happened in front of a business center not far from the ministry.
The Italian non-governmental organization Emergency, which runs a hospital in the capital, said on Twitter that it had two dead and twelve injured, including a child, at its facility.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
This is the first attack in Afghanistan since the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began last Thursday. Several attacks were carried out in the country during this period last year.
This is the second time in less than three months that an attack has been carried out near the State Department.
On Jan. 11, a suicide bombing outside the entrance of this ministry, claimed by the jihadist group EI-K, the local branch of the Islamic State (IS) group, left 10 dead and 53 wounded, according to support from the United Nations United Nations Mission Nations in Afghanistan (Manua).
An AFP staffer at the scene saw a man blow himself up with a Kalashnikov over his shoulder and a bag in his hand.
The Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) has increased its attacks on foreigners, religious minorities and state institutions.
The Taliban’s return to power ended two decades of warfare against NATO forces and the United States and led to a significant reduction in violence. But since last year, IS has become the government’s biggest security challenge.
ISIS and the Taliban share a strict Sunni Islamist ideology, but the former fights for the establishment of a global “caliphate” while the latter wants to lead an independent Afghanistan.
On December 12, five Chinese nationals were injured when gunmen attacked a hotel in the Afghan capital that was accommodating Chinese businessmen.
IS claimed this raid, as did the attack on the Pakistani embassy in Kabul, also in December. Islamabad had denounced an “assassination attempt” against its ambassador.
In September, a powerful pro-Taliban imam was killed in a massive explosion at one of western Herat’s largest mosques, Mujib ur Rahman Ansari, which also killed 17 others.
In the same month, two employees of the Russian embassy in Kabul and four Afghans were killed near the office building in what ISIS claimed was a suicide bombing.