IS claims attack on Iraqi embassy

A SUICIDE bomber blew himself up outside the Iraqi embassy in Kabul yesterday and militants breached the compound, Afghan officials said.

The complex hours-long attack was claimed by the Islamic State group.

All the attackers had been killed and the compound secured about four hours after the assault began, Afghanistan’s interior ministry said.

It said all embassy staff were safe and only one policeman was “slightly” wounded.

Earlier, black smoke billowed into the air above the neighbourhood in northwestern Kabul as the sound of gunfire, blasts and sirens could be heard. Panicked residents could be seen fleeing the area.

The interior ministry said at least four militants had attacked the embassy, beginning with a suicide bomber who detonated his vest at the compound entrance.

“The quick-response police forces arrived in time and evacuated the Iraqi diplomats to a safe place.”

The Iraqi foreign ministry in Baghdad said it was monitoring the situation with Afghan authorities, without giving further details.

The Islamic State’s propaganda agency Amaq claimed responsibility for the attack, saying two members “attacked the Iraqi embassy building in the Afghan city of Kabul”. The embassy is located in northwestern Kabul, in a neighbourhood that is home to several hotels and banks as well as large supermarkets and several police compounds.

The attack is the latest to rock Kabul, which is regularly devastated by bomb blasts and militant assaults.

The resurgent Taliban claims many of the attacks as it steps up its bid to drive out foreign forces.

But the Islamic State group, recently ousted from the Iraqi city of Mosul, has been expanding its footprint in eastern Afghanistan and has claimed responsibility for several attacks in Kabul.

First emerging in 2015, the group’s local affiliate, Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-K), overran large parts of eastern Nangarhar and Kunar provinces, near the Pakistan border, where it engaged in a turf war with the Taliban.

US forces in Afghanistan have repeatedly targeted the group, killing its head Abu Sayed and several senior advisers in a July 11 strike in Kunar, the Pentagon has said.

The group is believed to be on the back foot in the Middle East. But analysts said yesterday’s attack in Kabul would be seen as a warning to Baghdad after it pushed IS out of Mosul.

The attack underscores IS’s increasing presence in Afghanistan, which continues to be roiled by insecurity nearly 16 years after the US invasion to topple the Taliban regime.