Afghanistan Among Top 3 Countries At Risk of Humanitarian Emergencies in 2023, Says IRC

On Monday, a guest house in which Chinese citizens had been staying in Kabul came under a deadly attack which has left at least three dead and 18 injured. The Chinese government has confirmed that at least five citizens of the country had been injured in the attack.

After reviewing and examining the photos released by ISIS of the perpetrators of the attack, security experts believe that the attackers had moved inside the hotel before the attack started.

Interior decoration and hotel sofas can be seen in these photos. The experts examined the photos released by ISIS and compared them with the photos available publicly of the inside of the hotel on its website.

The Taliban claimed that "all three attackers" had been killed by members of this group, and only two people who had jumped out of the windows had been injured. However, these experts said that the video of the person who escaped from the hotel window shows that at least one of the ISIS attackers had fled the scene.

In one of these videos, a professionally trained man climbs down from the windows of the hotel. He has the same height, hairstyle, and clothing as one of the attackers, whose photo has been published on IS-K website.

The deadly attack has been carried out while the Taliban claims to have established nationwide security in Afghanistan after taking power in August 2021.

The Chinese government considered to be one of the main allies of the Taliban, on Tuesday, asked all its citizens to leave Afghanistan.

The day before the attack on the hotel, Taliban officials had assured the Chinese ambassador in Kabul that national security has been established in Afghanistan and that this group will ensure the security of Chinese citizens and diplomatic offices in Afghanistan.

In a press conference, Wenbin said, "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs once again advises Chinese citizens and organisations to leave Afghanistan."

The spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry called the attack "catastrophic" and said that China was "deeply shaken".

Wenbin added that the Taliban have been asked to "spare no effort to search and rescue Chinese citizens, while at the same time it should launch a comprehensive investigation, severely punish the attackers, and seriously strengthening the protection of Chinese citizens and organisations in Afghanistan."

A Telegram channel belonging to the ISIS group has claimed responsibility for the attack on the guest house of Chinese citizens in Kabul.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid had announced on Monday that the attack ended with the death of three armed attackers. He said that two Chinese citizens who threw themselves out of the windows of the guest house had been injured.

However earlier, the Emergency Hospital had announced that they had received three dead and 18 wounded people from the scene.

Zarifa Yaqoobi and her colleagues had been arrested by the Taliban in Kabul on November 3 when they wanted to announce the start of a new civil rights movement.

On Monday, Fawzia Kofi, a former member of the Afghan House of Representatives, announced that Yaqoobi has been released from the Taliban prison.

In the past month, the Taliban have arrested several women rights activists in Afghanistan. After their return to power in August 2021, the Taliban have imposed restrictions on women across Afghanistan.

Previously, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had told reporters in a meeting that women under the rule of the Taliban have been excluded from almost all areas of life in a systematic manner.

According to Rawadari’s findings, "At least 210 people, mainly employees of security and defense institutions of the previous government; judges; defense lawyers; human rights defenders; people associated with popular uprisings; former employees of government and non-government institutions, and civilians accused of collaborating with the ISIS group, National Resistance Front and other groups opposed to the Taliban, have been systematically and purposefully killed and wounded by the Taliban.”

The findings of this report include human rights violations of Afghan citizens from August 15, 2021, to August 15, 2021.

Previously, the New York Times had reported that nearly 500 soldiers and employees of the former government had disappeared or had been killed by the Taliban in the first six months of their rule over Afghanistan.

Rawadari is a network of human rights activists that investigates and documents human rights violations in Afghanistan.

Shahrazad Akbar, the former head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, is the director of this newly established human rights organisation.

The Taliban spokesperson had previously said that two foreign citizens had been injured in the Monday attack.

A Telegram channel belonging to the ISIS group has claimed responsibility for the armed attack on the guest house of Chinese citizens in Kabul.

The Emergency Hospital had previously announced that three dead and 18 wounded people from the attack in Kabul had been transferred to the hospital.

However, the exact number of casualty due to this attack is not known yet.