Taliban governor of Afghan province killed in suicide attack in his office

Kabul:

The Taliban governor of Afghanistan’s Balkh province, known for fighting against Islamic State jihadists, was killed in a suicide attack on his office on Thursday, officials said.

The killing, which came a day after he met top government officials from Kabul, makes Mohammad Dawood Muzammil one of the highest-ranking people killed since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.

Violence has decreased dramatically across Afghanistan since the Taliban seized control, but the security situation has deteriorated again with IS claiming several fatalities.

“Two people, including Balkh governor Mohammad Dawood Muzammil, were killed in an explosion this morning,” local police spokesman Asif Waziri told AFP. -e-Sharif.

“It was a suicide attack. We do not have information on how the suicide bomber reached the governor’s office,” he said. He said that two people were also injured.

Authorities deployed additional security to the governorate, who barred journalists from taking photographs, an AFP correspondent reported from near the site of the explosion.

Government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted, “Muzammil was martyred in the explosion carried out by the enemies of Islam.”

Muzammil was initially appointed governor of the eastern province of Nangarhar, where he led the fight against IS jihadists, before moving to Balkh last year.

On Wednesday, he met two deputy prime ministers and other senior officials who visited Balkh to review a major irrigation project in northern Afghanistan, according to a government statement.

IS has emerged as the biggest security challenge to the Taliban government since last year, carrying out attacks against Afghan civilians as well as foreigners and foreign interests.

Balkh, including Mazar-i-Sharif, has witnessed several attacks in the past year, some of which have been claimed by IS.

In January, a suicide bomber killed at least 10 people when he blew himself up near the foreign ministry in Kabul, in an attack claimed by IS.

The Taliban and IS share a hardline Sunni Islamist ideology, but the latter is fighting to establish a global “caliphate” rather than the Taliban’s more introverted goal of ruling an independent Afghanistan.

In December, at least five Chinese nationals were wounded when gunmen attacked a hotel popular with businessmen in Kabul.

That raid was claimed by IS, as was an attack on Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul in December, which Islamabad denounced as an “assassination attempt” against its ambassador.

In another attack claimed by IS, two Russian embassy employees were killed in a suicide bombing outside its mission in September.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)