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Kabul Suicide Bombing Widely Condemned
The deadly attack on a religious gathering in Kabul, which killed at least 50 people and injured scores others on Tuesday, has drawn wide condemnation.
In a statement, President Ashraf Ghani described the attack as “unforgivable and a clear act of hostility against Islam’s teaching.” Ghani declared Wednesday a national day of mourning and ordered that flags be flown at half-staff.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack and called it “a clear violation of international humanitarian law”. He said, “every effort should be made to bring perpetrators to justice”.
In a separate statement, the UN Security Council also slammed the attack and reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security.
U.S. Department of State spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement that the U.S. is committed to peace in Afghanistan.
“The United States strongly condemns the attack in Kabul today at a religious gathering,” Nauert said on Tuesday. “The United States remains committed to peace and stability in Afghanistan, and stands by the people of Afghanistan who want peace and a future free from these horrific acts of violence.”
Referring to the attack in Kabul, the European Union spokesperson said in a statement that “to attack those who pray or worship in peace is an attack on all of us, religious or not, who value freedom”.
“Together, we stand united against terrorism,” the statement further said,” At next week’s Conference on Afghanistan, hosted by the United Nations in Geneva, the whole international community must re-commit to a peaceful, prosperous Afghanistan.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said: “the hidden hands behind these cowardly terrorist operations have had no other goal but to provoke ethnic, sectarian and religious sedition”.
Responding to the deadly attack, the Amnesty International called it horrific.
“Any attack in which civilians are deliberately targeted constitutes a war crime under international law, yet those killed in Kabul today will merely become another statistic,” said Omar Waraich, Amnesty International Deputy South Asia Director.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and private telecommunication companies on Sunday signed contracts worth 365 million afghanis to provide telecommunication services in remote areas.
The contract was signed in the presence of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar Akhund, Economic Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Communications and Information Technology Mawolvi Najibullah Haqqani.
Speaking at the meeting Baradar said the Islamic Emirate considers the service necessary for the nation and tries its best to provide reliable and high quality telecommunications services to the people.
“Islamic Emirate has provided a good basis for investment in Afghanistan and appreciates the efforts of all those national businessmen and investors who invest for the economic growth of the country,” Baradar said.
The contracts signed were with Afghan Wireless Communications Company (AWCC) and MTN.
The two companies will establish 33 new sites in Kandahar, Nuristan, Badakhshan, Uruzgan, Zabul, Kunar, Nangarhar and Kabul provinces. These will be in remote areas where people do not have access to telecommunication services.
After reports of corruption and the move by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) to take control of Afghanistan’s embassy in New Delhi, the Indian government has said the issue is an internal matter which does not involve them.
Representatives of Afghan refugees living in India have accused officials at the Afghanistan embassy in Delhi, including the ambassador, of corruption. The embassy denies the allegations.
Indian media have also reported that the embassy resisted IEA’s move to formally take control of the embassy.
Arindam Bagchi, India’s foreign ministry spokesman, said in a press conference that the issue is an internal matter of the embassy.
“From our perspective, this is an internal matter of the Afghan Embassy, and we hope that they would resolve it internally,” Bagchi said.
The United Arab Emirates’ Permanent Representative to the UN Lana Nusseibeh said the UN Security Council will hold a meeting on Afghanistan later this month.
Nusseibeh, who is currently President of the Security Council, said: “We will hold a comprehensive meeting on Afghanistan’s situation on June 21.
“Our focus will be concentrated on Afghanistan’s situation, women’s rights in particular, over which all the members of the Security Council have agreed,” she added.
On Thursday, Nusseibeh told media in New York that the UN Security Council will continue working on the issues of Afghanistan, especially on women’s rights.
According to the UAE ambassador, Fraidoon Oglu, the UN Special Coordinator for Afghanistan Affairs will provide a comprehensive report about the situation in the country to the Security Council in November.
This comes after Fox News reported on Friday that several US Senators have proposed a bill to tighten sanctions against IEA officials in response to human rights violations in Afghanistan.
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