ISIS Backed Group Detonates Car Bomb in Kabul on New Year’s Day

2023 Starts with a Bang

Afghanistan rang in 2023 with a bang as a terrorist group exploded a device outside the military hospital in Kabul, as reported by news agency WION. Multiple casualties and deaths are feared. Afghanistan’s Taliban-run government has acknowledged the attack. Residents said they heard a loud explosion near the entrance to a military airfield shortly before 8:00 AM local time Sunday. The hospital is near Kabul (formerly known as Hamid Karzai) International Airport, the site of much upheaval in recent years. The blasts mark the first instance of multiple deaths from a violent source in 2023.

This footage, provided by Twitter and @TajudenSoroush, purportedly shows citizens injured in the attack, which they state resulted from a car bomb.

Graphic! At the beginning of 2023, a deadly car bomb attack at the entrance of the Kabul military airport targeted the Taliban. In this video, some people have fallen on the ground. Some statistics show that ten Taliban forces and five civilians were killed. pic.twitter.com/qFIAkcVFKH

— Tajuden Soroush (@TajudenSoroush) January 1, 2023

Possible ISIS Involvement

There have been no immediate claims of responsibility for the bombing. Still, it is well-known that the Islamic State in Khorasan Province has stepped up violent attacks since the Taliban retook the Afghan government in 2021. The two extremist groups have a well-established rivalry. They have been known to target members of the country’s Shiite minority and organized Taliban patrols. The ISIS affiliate was also implicated in a suicide bombing at a mosque that was part of the government ministry. That attack occurred in early October last year, claimed four lives, and seriously wounded 25 other worshipers.

The mosque at the center of the October bombing was part of Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry, which is responsible for security and law enforcement in the Muslim nation. The building was on one of Kabul’s main highways and is located in a fortified compound.

Only a couple of weeks before the October attack, there was another bombing in Kabul, this time at an education center in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood. A suicide bomber killed 19 people and wounded dozens of others. The school was in a predominately Shia Muslim area that was home to a minority Hazara community, according to a government spokesman. The victims were high school-aged students, both boys, and girls, who were taking a practice university entrance exam. Most of the casualties were female.

Yesterday’s attack was close to the site of October’s bombing and only about 200 yards from the civilian airport. The blast is said to have originated at a traffic and pedestrian checkpoint on Airport Road, and Taliban government officials would not allow direct photography or videography of the scene. The area is full of high-security neighborhoods, foreign embassies, and the Presidential Palace.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Nafi Takor offered a brief statement to the press, saying only that the blasts left “several” people dead and wounded. He provided no precise numbers or additional estimates and said details of an ongoing investigation would be shared later. A spokesman for the local police chief, Khalid Zadran, was not available for comment.

Other Taliban Related News

In other news, the Taliban-controlled Afghan government has told all local and foreign non-governmental organizations to prohibit women from working there. According to Fox News, the announcement came in the form of a letter from government spokesman Abdulrahman Habib who noted issues with female employees not adhering to the government’s proscribed official interpretation of the Islamic dress code for women. In recent months, there has been quite an uproar over Islamic women adhering to government-dictated dress codes in Iran.

A representative from the United Nations, which has a significant presence in Afghanistan, states that he was “deeply concerned” by the letter and it was “a clear breach of humanitarian principles.” The UN plans to meet with government representatives regarding the “no work” order for women, and US representatives have also let their opinions be known.

The Taliban’s decree barring women from working to deliver humanitarian aid is profoundly irresponsible. It poses mortal risks to millions who depend on life-saving assistance. Taliban ignoring their most basic responsibilities to their people. https://t.co/HFQfLsbHRc

— U.S. Special Representative Thomas West (@US4AfghanPeace) December 24, 2022

The ban prevents women from participating in delivering humanitarian aid and assistance to the citizens of their nation. After the fall of the US-backed government in 2021, women’s rights have taken a tremendous step backward in the fundamentalist Islamic country. Fox News reports that women have been barred from receiving a university education,  despite assurances by the Taliban that “all citizens” had the right to be educated in their nation. Shortly after retaking power, the Taliban banned girls from middle and high schools.

NPR recently interviewed a young female university student forced to quit school. She is devastated. “Such a decision made by the Taliban has shattered my dreams,” she says. She was about to complete her first year toward a civil engineering degree, and now she remarks,

“Everything is over for me. The only thing I wanted [was] to be educated and to be a good person in my community and to be an engineer and to serve people. But I cannot do that anymore. Life means nothing for me.”

Western diplomats refer to what is happening in Taliban-led Afghanistan as “gender apartheid.”