KABUL: The Daesh group claimed Wednesday a suicide bombing of a bank in north Afghanistan which killed five people a day earlier, saying it was targeting Taliban government employees collecting salaries.
Violence has waned in Afghanistan since the Taliban surged back to power and ended their insurgency in 2021, but the Daesh group frequently stages gun and bomb attacks challenging their rule.
On Tuesday police in the northern city of Kunduz said a suicide attack in front of a bank killed five people — including civil servants — and wounded seven others.
The Daesh propaganda wing said Wednesday a “suicide bomber” had “detonated his explosive vest” as “Taliban militia members gathered outside a public bank to collect their salaries.”
The group previously claimed responsibility for a similar bombing in March 2024, outside a bank in the southern city of Kandahar — considered the spiritual heartland of the Taliban movement.
Daesh said it had targeted “Taliban militia” members outside the bank. Taliban authorities said only three people had been killed in last year’s incident, but a hospital source put fatalities far higher at 20.
The Taliban government has declared security its highest priority since returning to power and analysts say they have had some success quashing Daesh with a sweeping crackdown.
But the group remains active — targeting Taliban officials, visitors from abroad, and foreign diplomats.
There are frequently discrepancies between the casualty tolls given by Taliban authorities and those reported by officials on the ground, and attack sites are routinely shut down by security forces.
In December, Daesh claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing which killed the Taliban’s government minister for refugees, Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani, in the capital Kabul.
Daesh group claims suicide bombing of Afghan bank
https://arab.news/m5tys
Daesh group claims suicide bombing of Afghan bank
- Violence has waned in Afghanistan since the Taliban surged back to power and ended their insurgency in 2021
- But the Daesh group frequently stages gun and bomb attacks challenging their rule
Kremlin welcomes US sanctions waiver says US and Russia share interest in stable energy markets
DUBAI: Russia sees a U.S. sanctions waiver on its oil as an attempt by Washington to stabilise global energy markets, and the two countries have a shared interest in this, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
"We see actions by the United States aimed at trying to stabilise energy markets. In this respect, our interests coincide," he said.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a temporary authorisation allowing countries around the world to purchase Russian oil currently stranded at sea on Thursday extending a measure that had previously been granted only to Indian refiners.
Bessent stressed in a post on X that the authorisation would not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government.
“This narrowly tailored, short-term measure applies only to oil already in transit and will not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government, which derives the majority of its energy revenue from taxes assessed at the point of extraction,” Bessent said on a post on X.
However, the measure received mix reviews in European capitals, with many fearing it could help replenish Russia's assualt on Ukraine.
"I am concerned that we are further filling Putin's war chest," German Economy Minister Katherina Reiche said in Berlin on Friday.
Reiche said that she saw both sides to the United States' decision to issue a 30-day waiver for the purchase of Russian oil products, understanding the increasing ecnomic and political turnout from the oil crisis, particurlarly in South Korea and Japan.
"It seems to me that domestic political pressure in the United States is very, very high," Reiche said.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was more direct, saying on Friday that it was wrong to ease sanctions against Russia for whatever reason. The sentiment was echoed by Norway’s Prime Minister, who also said sanctions should not be eased.
Oil prices held gains above $100 Friday and most equity markets dropped after Iran's leader called for the blocking of the crucial Strait of Hormuz and the opening up of new fronts in the war against the United States and Israel.
With the conflict heading towards its third week and showing no signs of ending, investors are growing increasingly worried about an extended crisis that could fan inflation and hammer the global economy.
