KABUL: A suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Iraqi embassy in Kabul and militants breached the compound, in a complex hours-long attack claimed by the Islamic State. The country's interior ministry said all attackers have been killed and the compound was secured roughly four hours after the assault began. It added that all embassy staff were safe and only one policeman wounded “slightly”.
The ministry said the attack began with a suicide bomber who detonated his vest at the entrance. “The quick-response police forces arrived in time and evacuated the Iraqi diplomats to safe place. No embassy staff have been harmed, only one policeman was wounded slightly,” their statement said. The Iraqi foreign ministry in Baghdad said the charge d'affairs was among those evacuated and that it was monitoring the situation with Afghan authorities, refraining from giving further details. IS' propaganda agency Amaq released a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, saying two members “attacked the Iraqi embassy building in the Afghan city of Kabul”.
The attack is the latest to rock Kabul, which is regularly devastated by bomb blasts and militant assaults, often killing many civilians. The resurgent Taliban has claimed several attacks, but the IS, which was recently ousted from the Iraqi city of Mosul, have been expanding their footprint in eastern Afghanistan and have claimed responsibility for several devastating attacks in Kabul.
Officials in America's Pentagon say the group has fewer than 1,000 in Afghanistan. “We will be relentless in our campaign against ISIS-K. There are no safe havens in Afghanistan,” said General John Nicholson, commander of US forces in the country. The IS is believed to be on the back foot in the Middle East, where analysts said it has lost over 60 per cent of its territory and 80 per cent of its revenue, three years after declaring its self-styled “caliphate” across swathes of Iraq and Syria.
