Afghanistan’s Taliban government’s refugee minister was killed Wednesday in an explosion at the ministry’s headquarters in the capital, Kabul, two senior Taliban regime officials told CBS News. The explosion at the Ministry of Refugees killed minister Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani along with at least a couple of his colleagues, officials told CBS News’ Sami Yousafzai.
Haqqani was the brother of Jalaluddin Haqqanithe late founder of the famous Haqqani network. The group was responsible for some of the most violent attacks during the Taliban’s two-decade insurgency following the 2001 US-led invasion to topple the previous Taliban government.
He was also the uncle of Sirajuddin Haqqani, who currently serves as Afghanistan’s interior minister.
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Violence has generally decreased in Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power in the summer of 2021, when U.S. and NATO-allied forces withdrew in a chaotic withdrawal that remains the subject of of intense scrutiny in Washington.
The regional branch of the ISIS terrorist group, however, ISIS-Khorasan, has remained active in Afghanistan and aims to regulate both Taliban regime officials as well as civilians and foreigners. Their attacks are largely seen as an effort to undermine Taliban rule.
Taliban officials told CBS News that investigations were underway to determine who carried out Wednesday’s attack that killed Haqqani, who they said may have been the target of the blast. , and to confirm how many others died in the explosion.