ISLAMABAD: Pakistan was “confident” that the perpetrators of last week’s attack on its embassy in Kabul would be brought to account, the Pakistani foreign office said, after the Afghan authorities announced arrest of a suspected attacker affiliated with the Daesh militant group.
The attack, in which shots were fired at the embassy from a nearby building, triggered anger in Pakistan and increased tensions between the two South Asian neighbors.
Pakistan’s top diplomat in Kabul was walking across the lawn inside the embassy compound at the time of the attack. He was unharmed but one of his Pakistani guards was wounded.
The chief spokesman for the Taliban government, Zabihullah Mujahid, announced the arrest of a suspect in the attack in a tweet on Monday.
“We also remain in active contact with the concerned Afghan authorities on the matter,” Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, a Pakistani foreign office spokesperson, said in a statement late Monday.
“We are confident that the terrorist attack targeting our Head of Mission in Kabul, will be fully investigated and the perpetrators and their abettors will be brought to account.”
The regional affiliate of the Daesh group, known as Daesh in Khorasan Province and a rival of Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, had claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack.
The group said two of its fighters attacked the Pakistani ambassador and his guards while they were inside the embassy’s yard.
Mujahid said the arrested suspect was a foreign national and the attack was jointly organized by Daesh and “rebels,” a reference to anti-Taliban groups in Afghanistan.
The Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021 as the United States and NATO forces were in the final weeks of their pullout from the country after 20 years of war.
