By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul came under gun attack on Friday, wounding a security guard, officials said, amid tensions over security issues between the neighboring countries.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the assassination attempt targeted the country’s top diplomat in Afghanistan.
“I strongly condemn dastardly assassination attempt on Pakistan Head of Mission, Kabul,” Sharif said in a tweet.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Foreign Office said the attack had been aimed at the head of mission, Ubaid-ur-Rehman Nizamani. It said Nizamani was safe, but a Pakistani security guard, Sepoy Israr Mohammad, was critically wounded.
Media reports say Chargé d’affaires Nizamani was on a routine afternoon walk on his residential lawn inside the sprawling embassy compound when unknown gunmen from a nearby building opened fire on him. The diplomat escaped unhurt, but his security guard was hit in the chest by three bullets.
A spokesperson for Kabul police said the embassy compound was targeted by gunfire from a nearby building. Police had arrested one suspect and recovered two firearms, the statement said.
Friday’s attack comes just days after junior Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar visited the Afghan capital for bilateral meetings with Taliban leaders mainly on security issues.
Pakistan blames the Afghan Taliban for not doing enough to control militants sheltering in their country, staging attacks across the border.
Nizamani arrived in Kabul last month to take up the role at one of the few embassies that have remained operational throughout the period since the hardline Islamist Taliban seized power in August 2021 after foreign forces withdrew.
The Afghan charge d’affaires in Islamabad had been called in over the “extremely serious lapse in security”.
Taliban Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said in a statement that his government strongly condemns “the failed firing attack” at the Pakistan embassy and that it will not allow “any malicious actors” to threaten the security of diplomatic missions in the Afghan capital.
“Our security [agencies] will conduct a serious investigation, identify perpetrators and bring them to justice,” Balkhi said.
Copyright © 2021 Independent Pakistan | All rights reserved
