Suicide bomber in Afghanistan kills 19
KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber targeted a convoy of Sikhs and Hindus on their way to meet Afghanistan’s president in the eastern city of Jalalabad on Sunday, killing at least 19 people.
Inamullah Miakhail, spokesman for the provincial hospital in Nangarhar, said that 17 of those killed were from the minority Sikh and Hindu communities.
Miakhail added that at least 10 of the 20 wounded were from the same communities and are undergoing treatment at a Jalalabad hospital.
Narendr Singh, one of the wounded Sikhs in Sunday’s attack, told The Associated Press by phone from his hospital bed in Jalalabad that the attack targeted their convoy. He cried on the phone worrying what had happened to his father, Avatar Singh Khalsa, who he was traveling with.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Meanwhile, the international community is trying to help the country which is trapped in a cycle of chaos and violence.
Official and diplomatic sources said that a senior US diplomat arrived in Pakistan for bilateral talks, focusing on diplomatic efforts to push for a peace process in Afghanistan.
US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Alice Wells, who landed in Pakistan on Sunday after concluding her two-day visit to Afghanistan, would hold meetings with foreign ministry officials in Islamabad on Monday, the sources told Xinhua News Agency.
Both sides have long been involved in consultations to encourage the Taliban to come to the negotiation table, however, these efforts have not yet been succeeded.
The Taliban insisted on direct talks with the United States as Taliban leaders said they consider Washington the major party to the conflict.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hinted last month that the US is willing to join the talks with the Taliban along with the Afghan government.
“The United States stands ready to work with the Afghan government, the Taliban, and all the people of Afghanistan to reach a peace agreement and political settlement that brings a permanent end to this war,” Pompeo said in a statement on June 16.
There was no immediate response from the Taliban to the US statement.
Wells arrived in Islamabad
on Sunday.
days after the US and some of its Western allies led a campaign to include Pakistan in a gray list of the Financial Action Task Force as they claim Pakistan was “unable to fight money laundering and terrorism financing”.