KABUL, Afghanistan (Washington Insider Magazine)– In an unprecedented attack on a foreign diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, a suicide bomber detonated a bomb just outside of the Russian Embassy in the Afghan city Kabul on Monday, killing 2 embassy employees and at least 1 Afghan citizen.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry and the official news agency RIA Novosti, the explosion occurred near the entrance to the consular area of the embassy, where Afghans were waiting to learn whether or not they had been granted visas. According to the agency, the Russian ambassador was calling out names of applicants for visas when the bomb detonated.
The explosion, the latest in a string of bombings and other assaults since the Taliban took control a year ago, ousted a Western-backed regime, and put an end to their 20-year war, went off without an instant claim of responsibility.
The series of bombings has mainly targeted Taliban strongholds or mosques of minority communities, primarily Shiites, but Monday’s blast looked to be the first to strike a foreign diplomatic presence in Afghanistan since the Taliban took control, according to ABC NEWS. They have primarily been attributed to the Afghan branch of the Islamic State, which strongly opposes the Taliban and holds Shiites in ferocious contempt as heretics.
Why extremists chose to specifically attack the Russian Embassy was not immediately obvious.
Only a handful of foreign missions continue to provide consular assistance in Kabul, and the only European mission is the Russian one. When the Taliban seized Kabul in August 2021 as NATO and the US withdrew their soldiers, the majority of countries shuttered their embassies. The Taliban regime is unrecognized internationally.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that following the assault, the embassy increased security and recruited Taliban officials, including intelligence personnel.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, an explosive device was detonated directly at the door to the consular department by an unidentified extremist. According to the report, two staffers of the diplomatic team were killed, and Afghan nationals also suffered losses.
At least one Afghan citizen was killed, and ten more were injured, according to Khalid Zadran, a spokesman for the Kabul police.
Before the suicide bomber could approach the gathering outside the embassy, according to Zadran, security personnel saw him and shot him. It was unclear right away if the bomber managed to trigger the explosion before getting shot or if the gunshot really set the explosives off.
Even throughout the two-decade conflict between the Taliban and the Western-backed administration, assaults on embassies were limited. More than ninety Afghans were killed and the German Embassy was severely damaged in a 2017 Taliban car bombing in a neighbourhood with several embassies and government buildings. A security guard was killed in 2015 when a Taliban car bomb detonated near the Spanish Embassy.
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, stated in late June that Russia is attempting to establish ties with the Taliban and also that Russia wants to see all of the ethnic communities in Afghanistan participate in the governance of the nation.
The Taliban have representatives in Russia, and a delegation recently visited the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, despite the fact that Moscow has branded the Taliban as a terrorist organisation.
