Islamic State claims responsibility for Kabul rocket attack

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack on Afghanistan’s capital city of Kabul, which killed at least eight people, AFP reported. 

A barrage of rockets struck densely populated areas of the Afghan capital. The attack was the latest in a wave of violence sweeping the Afghan capital.

The Islamic State said in a statement on its Telegram channels that 28 Katyusha rockets fired by “soldiers of the caliphate” hit Kabul’s heavily fortified Green Zone that houses “the presidential palace, embassies of Crusader states, and the headquarters of Afghan forces”.

Officials did not immediately comment on the attack but the Afghan interior ministry said that two “sticky bomb” explosions were reported earlier in the morning, one of which hit a police car, killing one policeman and injuring three others. 

The attack comes ahead of a meeting between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and delegations from the Taliban and the Afghan government in Doha, Qatar. 

The Taliban have pledged not to attack urban centres in Afghanistan under the terms of the US troop withdrawal from the country. 

However, violence continues in the war-torn nation and the Afghan government has blamed the outfit and their proxies for a slate of recent attacks in Kabul.