At least 13 people killed in Daesh bomb attack in Kabul

At least 13 people, including women and children, have lost their lives and dozens more sustained injuries after a member of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group detonated an explosive vest outside a government ministry in Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul, officials say.

According to Waheed Majroh, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health, the explosion, which also wounded at least 31 people, occurred at the main gate of the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development in Darulaman area on Monday.

Meanwhile, Faridoon Azhand, a spokesman for the targeted ministry, said that the terrorist blew himself up among a crowd of people, who had gathered there, waiting for a bus to take them home. “Unfortunately we have lost some colleagues,” added Azhand, who was inside the compound at the time.

Employees were leaving their offices earlier at 01:00 p.m. (0830 GMT) due to the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, when the blast occurred.

In a statement issued a few hours after the terror attack and carried by the Daesh-affiliated Amaq news portal, the terror group claimed responsibility for the explosion.

Since late last year, the Daesh terror group, which has already lost all its urban strongholds in Syria and Iraq, has taken advantage of the chaos in Afghanistan and established a foothold in the eastern and northern regions, launching deadly bomb attacks against civilians and security forces alike.

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The Afghan government welcomes Taliban’s agreement to its ceasefire proposal for Eid al-Fitr.

The Monday attack also occurred just two days after the Taliban militant group, which is also responsible for scores of deadly attacks across the crisis-hit country during the last 17 years, announced in a statement that it had agreed to a three-day ceasefire with Afghan security forces for Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, in the middle of June, following a truce deal already proposed by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Ghani had declared an unconditional week-long ceasefire with the Taliban on Thursday, but the offer excluded Daesh and other terrorist outfits.

The truce would last “from the 27th of Ramadan until the fifth day of Eid al-Fitr,” Ghani tweeted from an official account, indicating it could run from June 12 to 19.

The Taliban’s five-year rule over at least three quarters of Afghanistan came to an end when the US and its allies invaded the country on October 7, 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror.

The so-called war on terror ousted the Taliban regime from power, but, ever since, the group has been involved in widespread militancy, killing thousands of civilians as well as Afghan security forces and displacing tens of thousands of people across the country.

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