The Islamic State group claimed responsibility Tuesday for a suicide bombing in Kabul that killed at least six people in Afghanistan’s capital city. The terrorist organization said the blast was in retaliation for the Taliban reopening a detention center at its high-security Bagram base, ABC News reported.
Bagram was originally built by forces of the Soviet Union that occupied parts of the country during the Afghan war in the 1980s. The base was taken over by US forces that entered Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City and the Pentagon. After the Islamist Taliban seized power in 2021, they took control of the base.
"The attack came in retaliation for Muslim prisoners in Taliban prisons, especially after their transfer to the notorious 'Bagram' prison, in a repeat of the American era and its practices against prisoners," Islamic State said in a Telegram post.
CIA personnel were stationed at Bagram and used torture to extract information from Afghan prisoners. The Taliban announced on Sunday that the prison at Bagram would be reopened and that the General Directorate of Intelligence now had responsibility for its operation after years of the facility being closed. The Taliban indicated that some prisoners had been moved to the prison but who they were, according to Reuters.
Kabul police said all of those who died in the suicide bombing attack were civilians and did not speculate as to what the bomber’s intended target was.
The Islamic State is claiming that 45 people were killed in the blast, including some Taliban authorities, and that the bomber had sought to kill employees of Afghanistan’s judicial services. Reuters has been unable to independently verify either the number killed or the site bombed.
Islamic State-Khurasan, a local affiliate of the Middle East-based Islamic State group, is fighting an internecine war against the Taliban. Although the Taliban has claimed it has effectively defeated the group, it hasn’t stopped the group from its terrorist activities in Afghanistan.
Islamic State militants continue to earn infamy around the world for their terrorist activities that they have claimed responsibility for including a mass stabbing in Germany, a concert hall shooting in Russia and a bombing in Iran.
The Taliban runs Afghanistan in a strictly Islamist fashion. The regime has banned women from speaking or showing their faces in public.
The Taliban recently fired hundreds of men from its security detail because they were beardless. The regime has actually outlawed barbers in some parts of the country from shaving or trimming beards, saying the dictate is part of Sharia law. This week, the leadership staged a massive parade of military hardware left by US forces during President Joe Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Kabul in 2021. Women living in the ultra-Islamic regime can only travel if they’re married.
