Taliban refugee minister Khalil Haqqani has died in a suicide bombing within the interior ministry in Kabul, marking the movement’s most significant loss since regaining power in Afghanistan in 2021.
Interior ministry sources reported that six others also perished in the explosion as Haqqani was exiting his office.
Khalil Haqqani was a senior member of a prominent faction within the Taliban known as the Haqqani network and was labeled a global terrorist by the US.
The Islamic State group (IS) later took responsibility for the incident.
A report from IS’s “news agency” Amaq stated that an IS militant awaited outside the minister’s office and detonated explosives as Haqqani emerged.
Reuters news agency reported that a Taliban spokesperson confirmed Haqqani’s death was due to IS.
Khalil Haqqani’s brother Jalaluddin was a notable guerrilla leader who fought against Soviet forces in Afghanistan during the 1980s and established the Haqqani network, which conducted numerous attacks throughout the Taliban’s 20-year insurgency.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, the minister’s nephew and Jalaluddin’s son, currently serves as the interior minister in the Taliban government.
Although the overall security landscape in Afghanistan has improved since the Taliban assumed complete control following the total withdrawal of foreign troops in 2021, there remain numerous bombings and suicide attacks across the country each year.
Many of these have been attributed to Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISKP, the regional affiliate of the so-called Islamic State group, a key adversary of the Taliban.
