Violence has surged across Afghanistan in recent months, with several deadly attacks carried out in Kabul, despite the Taliban
...mindless ferocity in a turban...and the government engaging in peace talks since September 12 in Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
.
"This morning, 10 rockets were fired from the Labe Jar neighborhood of Kabul," interior ministry front man Tariq Arian told news hounds.
He said three rockets landed near Kabul airport and seven in residential areas, leaving one civilian dead and two maimed.
ISIS issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, saying it was targeting the military section of Kabul airport, the media monitor SITE said.
The barrage of rockets on Saturday was the second such attack in less than a month in Kabul.
On November 21, eight people were killed and 31 were maimed when 23 rockets hit the capital in an attack claimed by IS.
The holy warrior group has also claimed two brutal attacks on educational centers in the capital that killed mostly students, including one on Kabul University during which button men sprayed classrooms with bullets.
Authorities blamed the attacks on educational centers on the Haqqani network
...a branch of the Afghan Taliban, based in Pakistain. The network is a family business founded by the later Jalaluddin Haqqani...
, an affiliate of the Taliban.
Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh said on his Facebook page on Saturday that he had received a warning from IS that it would "transform Kabul into a slaughterhouse for Shiites" if any of the holy warrior group’s snuffies arrested by government forces were executed.
In recent months, Saleh and his aides have pushed for public trials of "terrorists" arrested in connection with deadly attacks and for those found guilty to be hanged publicly.
ISIS has regularly claimed attacks targeting the minority Shiite Hazara
...a grouping of Dari-speaking people of Sino-Tibetan descent inhabiting Afghanistan and Pakistain. They are predominantly Shia Moslems and not particularly warlike, which makes them favored targets...
community in Afghanistan.
In a separate statement, the interior ministry said attacks such as Saturday’s were aimed at "soft targets".
"The enemies of the people of Afghanistan have intensified the violence," it said.
"But they have failed to capture districts and they have lost in the battlefields, so they have resorted to hitting at soft targets," it said.
Violence has surged amid an ongoing withdrawal of US troops as President Donald Trump
...the Nailer of NAFTA...
pushes to end America’s longest war.
In November, the Pentagon said it would pull 2,000 troops out of Afghanistan, speeding up the timeline established in a February agreement between Washington and the Taliban that envisions a full withdrawal by May 2021.
That deal also stipulates that the Taliban will not target key cities in the country, although Afghan authorities have blamed them for such attacks.