Taliban governor of Afghanistan’s Balkh province killed in blast

Mohammad Dawood Muzammil’s killing comes a day after he met high authorities officers visiting from capital Kabul.

Taliban fighters stand guard outside the hospital after a bomb blast in Mazar-e Sharif, the capital city of Balkh province, in northern Afghanistan
Guards exterior a hospital in Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, in northern Afghanistan [Abdul Saboor Sirat/AP]

A bomb blast in Afghanistan’s northern Balkh province has killed three individuals, together with its Taliban governor, police mentioned.

“Two individuals, together with Mohammad Dawood Muzammil, the governor of Balkh, have been killed in an explosion this morning,” police spokesman Asif Waziri mentioned on Thursday.

Waziri mentioned the blast occurred on the second ground of his workplace within the provincial capital of Mazar-i-Sharif.

“It was a suicide assault. We don’t have data as to how the suicide bomber reached the workplace of the governor,” he mentioned, including that two individuals had been additionally wounded.

Nobody instantly claimed duty for the assault, however a regional affiliate of the ISIL group is a key rival of the ruling Taliban.

The killing of Muzammil, identified for his resistance to the ISIL within the space, got here a day after he met high authorities officers visiting from capital Kabul.

The killing makes Muzammil one of many highest-ranking figures slain for the reason that Taliban stormed again to energy in 2021.

Violence throughout Afghanistan dramatically dropped for the reason that Taliban seized management, however the safety scenario has once more deteriorated with ISIL claiming a number of lethal assaults.

Authorities deployed additional safety on the governorate and forbade journalists from taking images, a correspondent of the AFP information company reported from close to the location of the blast.

Muzammil was “martyred in an explosion by the enemies of Islam”, tweeted Taliban authorities’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.

Muzammil was initially appointed governor of the jap province of Nangarhar, the place he led the battle in opposition to ISIL, earlier than being moved to Balkh final 12 months.

On Wednesday, he met two deputy prime ministers and different senior officers visiting Balkh to evaluation a serious irrigation mission in northern Afghanistan, in accordance with a authorities assertion.

The ISIL has emerged because the greatest safety problem to the Taliban authorities since final 12 months, finishing up assaults in opposition to Afghan civilians in addition to foreigners and overseas pursuits.

ISIL says it's combating to ascertain a worldwide Islamic “caliphate” as an alternative of the Taliban’s extra inward-looking objective of ruling an impartial Afghanistan.

A number of assaults have rocked Balkh, together with in Mazar-i-Sharif final 12 months, some claimed by the armed group.

In January, a suicide bomber killed at the least 10 individuals when he blew himself up close to the overseas ministry in Kabul, in an assault claimed by the group.

At the very least 5 Chinese language nationals had been wounded in December when gunmen stormed a resort well-liked with businesspeople in Kabul. ISIL claimed duty for the raid.

One other assault on Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul in December that Islamabad denounced as an “assassination try” in opposition to its ambassador was additionally claimed by the group.

Two Russian embassy workers members had been killed in a suicide bombing exterior their mission in September in one more assault claimed by ISIL.

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