“Three suicide bombers carrying guns were involved in this attack and were killed by Afghan forces”, he told Reuters.
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Security guards chased away the drive-by attackers, it said, and an editor hit by shrapnel in the head was hospitalised. Along with the policemen killed, seven people were also wounded in the attack, Khyogani added. It said their mission was to avenge Afzal Guru, who was hanged in 2013 for his involvement in the attack on the Indian parliament in 2000. The two gunmen, who later took positions in a guesthouse close to the consulate, were killed hours later, Khyogani said.
Meanwhile, at least 14 people, including police personnel, have been killed and several injured in another blast near anti-polio centre in Quetta’s satellite town in Pakistan.
The rise of Afghanistan’s Islamic State branch, made up largely of fighters from the Pakistani Taliban and disaffected former Afghan Taliban, underscores how complex any negotiations to end the war in Afghanistan will be with multiple insurgent factions fighting both the Afghan government and each other.
“The attack on Mazar-i-Sharif was done by Pakistan military as per the Afghan Police”. A decision is not expected before Wednesday evening, Indian officials said.
The Pakistani consulate is usually busy during morning rush hour as people queue for visas.
During the attack, a second suicide bomber blew himself up while the third terrorist apparently managed to escape after the killing spree.
“The staff at the Pakistani consulate are safe and no one is hurt”. Pakistan has requested that details of the investigation should be shared with them.
Khan was one of five mid-ranking commanders from the outlawed Pakistani Taliban to defect and join the Islamic State in 2014.
The office of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Afghan President Ashraf Ghani telephoned him to guarantee enhanced security for Pakistani diplomats in Afghanistan. “They fought us and only by Allah’s grace were we able to control them and eliminate them”, Sadat said.
Security personnel inspect a building used by insurgents to launch the attack. No group has claimed that attack so far.
The group responsible for that attack has not been identified but the incident fuelled suspicion in India about terrorists sponsored from Pakistan and it cast a shadow over the latest effort to improve relations between the two neighbours.
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In September the Taliban briefly seized the northern provincial capital of Kunduz, and in recent weeks they have seized large swathes of the key opium-rich district of Sangin in the southern province of Helmand, their traditional stronghold.
