A loud explosion and shooting were heard in the Afghan capital on Monday near a hotel popular with Chinese business tourists, according to a witness.
Since sweeping back to power in August last year, the Taliban claim to have improved national security, but there have been dozens of bomb blasts and attacks, many of which have been claimed by the local chapter of the Daesh group.
“There was a really loud explosion followed by a lot of gunshots,” the witness stated. Similar information was reported in Afghan media.
Security officials were not immediately available for comment on the explosion in Shahr-e-naw, one of Kabul’s busiest business districts.
The Kabul Longan Hotel, a multi-story structure popular with Chinese business people visiting Afghanistan in greater numbers since the Taliban’s return, is located in the district.
According to a Taliban insider in Pakistan, an unknown number of attackers entered the hotel.
“An operation against the attackers has been initiated.” “The shooting continues,” he said.
Teams of Taliban special forces rushed to the scene, according to AFP correspondents.
China, which shares a 76-kilometer border with Afghanistan, has not formally recognized the Taliban government but is one of the few countries with a complete diplomatic presence in the country.
Beijing has long feared that Afghanistan would become a staging ground for minority Uyghur separatists in Xinjiang’s sensitive border area.
In exchange for the Taliban’s guarantee that Afghanistan will not be used as a base for extremists, China has offered economic assistance and investment in Afghanistan’s rehabilitation.
Maintaining peace in Afghanistan after decades of war is Beijing’s primary concern as it strives to safeguard its borders and make crucial infrastructure investments in neighboring Pakistan, which is home to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
The Taliban makes every effort to depict Afghanistan as a safe haven for diplomats and businesspeople, but two Russian embassy staff members were killed in a suicide bombing outside the mission in September, an act claimed by Daesh.
The group also claimed responsibility for an attack this month on Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul, which Islamabad condemned as a “assassination attempt” on the ambassador.
In that attack, a security guard was injured.
Despite owning the rights to major projects in Afghanistan, including the Mes Aynak copper mine, China has not moved any of them forward.
The Taliban are relying on China to convert one of the world’s largest copper resources into a working mine, which would assist the cash-strapped and sanctions-hit Afghanistan in its recovery.
Source: AFP
