At least two officials at the diplomatic headquarters were killed and dozens injured in a bomb attack on the Russian embassy in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, the European country’s Foreign Ministry said.
According to the information received from the ministry, the attack took place at around 10:50 am (local time) near the entrance of the site, where several Afghans were waiting for news about their visas.
The Russian news agency “Ria Novosti” revealed that the suicide bomber blew himself up after a diplomat from the European country said the names of visa applicants.
In another version of the attack, Kabul security spokesman Khalid Zadran said the attacker “wanted to blow himself up in the presence of those seeking visas”, but that the terrorist was “seen by the guards and killed before he reached the target”. But the explosives may have been triggered by the agents’ bullets.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that urgent measures were taken to strengthen security around the embassy in Kabul.
“A number of measures were immediately taken to strengthen the protection of the external environment. Additional forces of the Taliban officials were mobilized and Afghan intelligence capabilities were used,” he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov condemned the attack and said he was trying to get information about Russian diplomats.
“We are definitely talking about a terrorist attack and we strongly condemn such attacks. Of course, the most important thing to do right now is to get information about the whereabouts of our representatives and diplomats,” Peskov said. said.
Russia was one of the few countries that decided to keep an embassy in Kabul after the fundamentalist Taliban group took over Afghanistan more than a year ago.
(ERRAT: The first version of the text, published at 8:05 am, reported that at least 25 people were killed in the Kabul attack, but two embassy personnel of the Russian Foreign Ministry were killed and dozens were injured.) ( ANSA).
source: Noticias
