(12 Dec 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Garda Serai district of Paktia province, Afghanistan – 12 December 2024
1. Various of Taliban helicopters patrolling
2. Taliban armoured vehicles lined up
3. Wide of vehicle driving past Taliban security personnel
4. People carrying Khalil Haqqani’s coffin
5. Soundbite (Pashto) Sirajuddin Haqqani, Taliban acting interior minister:
"The person who carried out this weak action, I wish he thought that Khalil was an enemy of the infidels. The Americans offered a $5 million reward (for information) on him. He was not an enemy of Muslims. How can you call this a great victory that you martyred a Muslim and are proud of it? I wish you had done a great action against the infidels in the infidel world that the Muslims would be proud of you (for)."
6. Mid of Taliban security personnell
7. Various of people gathered at funeral
STORYLINE:
Thousands of people attended the funeral on Thursday of a Taliban minister killed in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, the day before that was claimed by the Islamic State group.
The funeral for Khalil Haqqani, the minister for refugees and repatriation, was held in the eastern Paktia province.
The Cabinet member was the most high-profile casualty of an assault in the country since the Taliban seized power three years ago.
The minister, who died in a blast Wednesday at his ministry in Kabul along with five others, was the uncle of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the acting interior minister and the leader of a powerful faction within the Taliban.
The United States has placed a bounty on both their heads.
Tight security was in place for the high-ranking officials attending the funeral, including Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and Deputy Prime Minister Maulvi Abdul Kabir.
Armed men guarded the coffin, which was draped in the Taliban flag, and loudspeakers broadcast sermons and eulogies.
Local and international media were invited to cover the funeral in Garda Serai district in Paktia.
Sirajuddin Haqqani led the mourners in prayer. They gathered on a vast plain against a backdrop of rugged mountains.
Haqqani told the crowd he wished the person who perpetrated this “weak action” had thought of his uncle as an enemy of non-Muslims.
“The Americans offered a $5 million reward (for information) on him," said the acting interior minister.
"He was not an enemy of Muslims. How can you call this a great victory, that you martyred a Muslim and are proud of it?”
In a statement carried by the Amaq News Agency, the Islamic State Khorasan Province — a regional affiliate of the Islamic State group — said that one of its fighters carried out the suicide bombing.
The fighter waited for Haqqani to leave his office and then detonated his device, according to the statement.
An official from Paktia, the Haqqanis’ heartland, gave a different account of what happened. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
The assailant was able to gain access to the ministry despite setting off an alarm on the body scanner because he told the guard he had metal plates in his hands, the official said. He also claimed he was a refugee.
The official added that Haqqani made time for refugees and people with disabilities who come to see him at work because he was sympathetic to their plight.
He was approaching the ministry after praying in the compound’s mosque when the assailant detonated the bomb, the official added.
The U.N. mission in Afghanistan was among those to condemn the ministry attack.
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