UN says shooting incident at Kabul compound killed one

An undated photograph released by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) shows a man waiting in a car outside the entrance of the UN mission in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Photo Courtesy: UNAMA/File)
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Updated 03 February 2025
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UN says shooting incident at Kabul compound killed one

  • UN says gunshots were fired by member of Taliban’s security forces at multilateral agency’s largest compound 
  • Person killed was member of Taliban-run security forces who was outside the compound, unclear what provoked firing

ISLAMABAD: Gunshots fired by a member of the Taliban’s security forces at the United Nations’ largest compound killed one person and injured another in Kabul, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a statement on Monday.

The incident took place on Sunday, it said.

The person killed was a member of the Taliban-run security forces who was outside the compound, the statement said without adding any details. The person injured was an international security guard contracted by the UN, it said.

“UN-contracted security guards did not return fire during the incident,” it said.

It was unclear what provoked the firing. Both the Taliban and the UN were investigating the incident.

Kabul’s interior ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qaniee confirmed that a Taliban guard was killed and one UN contractor suffered injuries.

Taliban authorities halted all movement in and out of the compound following the incident, UNAMA said, but those restrictions have now been lifted.

The compound houses the offices of multiple UN agencies, funds and programs, and accommodation for UN international staff members.


X briefly hit by 'international outages': monitors

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X briefly hit by 'international outages': monitors

  • The breakdown was "not related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering," Netblocks said
  • Spokespeople for X did not respond to request for comment on the outage before service was restored

Service was restored to Elon Musk-owned social network X Monday afternoon after it had failed to show posts to users in many countries.

The site was displaying content, allowing users to post and otherwise functioning normally again around 1530 GMT, after the Down Detector tracking website reported a spike in outage reports around two hours before.

X had appeared to be suffering "international outages," connectivity monitor Netblocks posted on the open-source social network Mastodon during the disruption.

The breakdown was "not related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering", added Netblocks, which regularly flags technical issues with popular online services and sites as well as interference by national governments.

Its most recent posts about similar outages for X came on February 9, the day after the Super Bowl in the US, and February 1.

AFP journalists in countries including France and Thailand had also been unable to access X on Monday afternoon.

Spokespeople for X did not respond to AFP's request for comment on the outage before service was restored.

Musk laid off thousands of people at the former Twitter and changed its name after buying the service in 2022.

He has since merged it with his xAI company, which develops the Grok chatbot.

xAI is set to in turn be absorbed by Musk's rocket firm SpaceX, with that merged entity expected to go public as early as summer this year.