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Afghan official: At least 13 dead, 14 wounded in attack Suicide bomber kills 13 in attack on prominent Afghan family
(about 2 hours later)
KABUL, Afghanistan — At least 13 people have been killed and 14 wounded in a suicide attack at the home of a prominent politician in the increasingly volatile eastern city of Jalalabad, an Afghan official said on Sunday. KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber targeting a gathering in a volatile eastern province of Afghanistan killed 13 people, including seven members of a prominent pro-government clan, Afghan officials said.
The attacker detonated his explosives, which were secreted in his clothing, around 10:30 a.m. at the residential compound of Obaidullah Shinwari, said Ataullah Khyogani, spokesman for the Nangarhar provincial government. Another 14 people were wounded in the attack on the home of Obaidullah Shinwari, a scion of the clan and member of the Nangarhar provincial council who was not harmed in the attack, the officials said.
Shinwari is a member of Nangarhar’s provincial council and his family is active in local and national politics. The attack came a day before a second round of international talks aimed at reviving the peace process between the Afghan government and the Taliban. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. A Taliban spokesman tweeted that his group was not involved.
His father Malik Osman is an influential community elder in the Shinwari district near the Pakistan border who has spoken out against about the presence in the region of the Islamic State group. The head of the council, Ahmad Ali Hazrat, told The Associated Press that the bomber mingled with a crowd at the family event in the provincial capital of Jalalabad before setting off his payload.
Khyogani said a guesthouse on the compound was crowded with people who had been invited to a family event. Malik Osman, the head of the family and a respected community elder in the Shinwar district near the Pakistan border was wounded and flown to Kabul for treatment, Hazrat said.
“The number of casualties is likely to increase because there were so many people there,” Khyogani said. The family has strongly supported President Ashraf Ghani’s efforts to bring peace to the country after almost 40 years of war and 15 years of Taliban insurgency.
Enamullah Miakheil, spokesman for the Nangarhar Public Health Hospital, said that 13 bodies and 14 wounded people had been brought to the hospital so far. The family and guests had gathered to mark the release of another of Osman’s sons, Samiullah, eight months after he was kidnapped and held by the Taliban. Samiullah was wounded in the attack, but not seriously, according to Zabiullah Zamaray, another provincial council member.
President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack, saying in a statement that as “terrorists lose their ability to fight Afghan forces on the battlefield, not they are carrying out terror attacks on residential areas.” The day before the attack, hundreds of residents of Achin district — where Shinwari’s nephew Nasim is governor — held a demonstration calling on authorities to rid the region of insurgents, including a newly formed Islamic State affiliate that recently seized parts of the province after a summer of fierce fighting with the Taliban.
The compound is close to the Pakistani consulate, targeted last week in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. An attack last week on the Pakistani consulate in Jalalabad, which is close to Shinwari’s home, was claimed by the IS affiliate, which refers to itself as Khorasan Province and was recently listed as a terror group by the U.S. government.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the Sunday attack, but a Taliban spokesman posted a message on Twitter denying Taliban involvement. Ghani condemned the attack, saying in a statement that as “terrorists lose their ability to fight Afghan forces on the battlefield, now they are carrying out terror attacks on residential areas.”
Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar, has seen the number of threats and attacks rise in recent months as the presence of IS has grown in the region. Representatives of Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States and China are due to meet in Kabul on Monday for the second time this month to formulate a roadmap for peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban. The Taliban are not taking part in the talks.
Gunmen affiliated with IS have fought fierce battles with the Taliban, with IS taking control of at least four districts on the province’s border with Pakistan. An official in Kabul from one of the countries involved in the talks said that another two rounds of “preparatory meetings” were likely to take place as they worked out the details of a future dialogue.
In one of those districts, Achin, Shinwari’s nephew Nasim is a former governor. Achin witnessed anti-Islamic State group and anti-Taliban demonstrations on Saturday when hundreds of residents called for the central government to rid their region of the insurgents. “There are different opinions about the methodologies and approaches in resuming these talks,” he said. The roadmap would include “who do they want to talk to, on what timetable, what incentives are to be offered, and what kind of action will be taken with those people who want to talk and those who do not want to talk,” the official said.
The attack comes a day ahead of a second round of high-level talks aimed at eventually brokering a peace deal between Kabul and the Taliban, who have been fighting for more than 14 years. The official was not authorized to speak with reporters about the talks so spoke on condition of anonymity.
The talks will see representatives of Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States and China meet to formulate a roadmap for a dialogue that will eventually, they hope, include Taliban representatives. The first meeting of the four-nation group took place in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Jan. 11.
The first meeting of the group took place in the Pakistani capital Islamabad on Jan. 11. The Taliban have not been included in these meetings. The meetings seek to revive a process that was derailed last July after the first and only face-to-face meeting between Afghan government and Taliban representatives in Islamabad. That initiative collapsed after Kabul announced that the insurgent group’s leader had died in a Pakistani hospital more than two years earlier.
The meetings seek to revive a process that was derailed last July after the first and only face-to-face meeting between Afghan government and Taliban representatives in Islamabad. That initiative faltered when Kabul announced that the insurgent group’s leader had secretly been dead for more than two years.
Subsequent meetings were cancelled and relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan chilled, as President Ashraf Ghani publicly blamed Pakistan for using the Taliban to wage war on his country.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.