Pakistan: Envoy shot at in Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD — Shots were fired Friday at the Pakistani embassy in Afghanistan in what Pakistan’s prime minister described as an attempt to assassinate his country’s envoy in Kabul. The envoy was not harmed, but a body guard was wounded, Pakistani officials said.
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif called the shooting an “assassination attempt” against Pakistan’s representative in the country, in a tweet he posted.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement the assailants had failed to harm its head of mission Ubaid-ur-Rehman Nizamani but shot and “critically injured” a security guard.
It summoned a senior Afghan diplomat in Islamabad over the embassy attack, according to a ministry statement.
Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi strongly condemned the embassy attack, and said the Taliban will not allow any “malicious actors to pose a threat to the security of diplomatic missions in Kabul.”
Kabul’s police chief spokesman Khalid Zadran said shots were fired from a building near the Pakistani embassy. Police have detained a suspect, he added.
Politician Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, also escaped unhurt a separate attack Friday in Kabul, his office said in a statement. Security guards killed the two attackers as they tried to enter a mosque where Hekmatyar and his supporters had gathered for Friday prayers, the statement said.
Hekmatyar later said the attackers were suicide bombers disguised in women’s burqas.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for either of the attacks in Kabul.