ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will try to verify if Daesh was behind a recent attack on its diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, said a senior official on Sunday, after the militant group said it made the attempt to target the country's envoy in Kabul.
The Pakistan embassy came under attack on Friday, making the authorities in Islamabad describe the incident as an "assassination attempt" against its top diplomat in Afghanistan.
While the country's Chargé d'Affaires, Ubaid-ur-Rehman Nizamani, was not hurt in the attack, a Pakistani security guard got "critically injured" and was later flown to Peshawar for medical treatment.
Daesh's regional chapter, which calls itself the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (IS-KP), purportedly acknowledged in a statement, cited by the SITE monitor, that it had "attacked the apostate Pakistani ambassador and his guards" in Afghanistan.
"The IS-KP have accepted responsibility for the terrorist attack on Pakistan Embassy compound on 2 December," said the country's special representative for Afghanistan, Ambassador Mohammad Sadiq, in a Twitter post. "Independently and in consultation with the Afghan authorities, Pakistan will verify the veracity of these reports."
Regardless of who was behind the attack, Sadiq continued, the incident was another reminder that such instances of extremist violence posed a major threat to the peace and stability of Afghanistan and the region.
"We must act resolutely with all our collective might to defeat this menace," he said, adding: "On our part, Pakistan remains steadfast in its commitment to fighting terrorism."
The acting foreign minister of Afghanistan, Amir Khan Muttaqi, said on Saturday his country would "bring the perpetrators of this heinous attack to justice" while condemning the incident.
Pakistan's interior minister Rana Sanaullah recently maintained that another proscribed militant entity, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), was enjoying "all sorts of facilities in Afghanistan" after the TTP leadership said it was behind a recent suicide bombing in southwestern Balochistan province that targeted police personnel protecting polio workers.
The TTP leaders are based in Afghanistan and the Pakistani minister said the group's activities should be "a matter of concern" for the administration in Kabul.