The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) condemned the Taliban initiated attack at Kandahar airport on 8 December, which reportedly killed 39 civilians, including four children and injured at least 23 civilians.
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Nabil said the president’s trip was disrespectful to Afghans killed in Taliban attacks around the country because Ghani had been holding talks with government leaders in Pakistan, where the Taliban’s leadership council is based.
The ministry of defence confirmed in a statement that 37 people, including women and children and Afghan national security forces, had so far been killed, with another 35 wounded, with fighting still continuing yesterday evening.
The Taliban said it carried out the attack at the heavily fortified site.
In late September, Taliban militants briefly took control of Afghanistan’s northern city of Kunduz.
Mansour’s group has seen a resurgence in recent months, opening new battlefronts across the country with Afghan forces struggling to rein in the expanding insurgency. The coalition said conducted “force protection measures to ensure all service members and civilians at the airport remained safe”. Another source said the third floor was on fire after the final standoff with the last assailant.
Afghanistan has long accused its neighbour of providing safe haven to Taliban insurgents, who have been mounting an increasing number of attacks since most foreign forces left Afghanistan a year ago.
Separately, the Taliban claimed to have captured Khanashin district in southern Helmand province.
The raid in one of the Taliban’s traditional strongholds coincided with the start of a regional security conference in Islamabad, where Afghan President Ashraf Ghani made a plea for more support from neighbours to fight the growing insurgency.
The sprawling airport in Kandahar is known as Kandahar Air Field.
Afghan, U.S., Pakistani and Chinese officials discussed resumption of peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban on the sidelines of the conference. Omar’s death seemed to remove a unifying figure, and the section of the Taliban that was opposed to peace talks with the Afghan government – an initiative agreed to by the Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour faction of the Taliban – reneging their pledge to uphold Mansour’s command.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif personally welcomed Ghani at the airport in a red-carpet reception with a guard of honour and 21 gun salute, with the leaders scheduled to hold bilateral talks later in the day.
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The Taliban asserted responsibility for the attack. A Taliban spokesman denied the report.
