A Taliban suicide bomber and gunmen killed 21 people including one senior International Monetary Fund official and four United Nations staff near a Lebanese restaurant in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday.
At around 7:30 in the evening the suicide bomber blew himself up outside the entrance of the La Taverna du Liban restaurant located in the Wazir Akbar Khan district in Kabul. The restaurant is popular with the expatriates, businessmen and Afghan officials. Two accompanying gunmen also opened fire at the diners.
Gen. Mohammad Zahir, Kabul police chief said 13 foreigners and five women were among those killed in the attack, reports The Wall Street Journal. The injured foreigners were taken to a coalition military hospital in Kabul while the Afghans were rushed to nearby civil hospitals.
Claiming responsibility for the attack, the Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahed said that their target were the Germans and other foreign nationals, according to a Bloomberg report.
"Such targeted attacks against civilians are completely unacceptable and are in flagrant breach of international humanitarian law," UN spokesman Farhan Haq, said in a statement, reports Reuters. "They must stop immediately."
Wabel Abdallah, 60, resident representative of the IMF in Afghanistan was killed in the deadly attack. He was serving in this position since 2008. "This is tragic news, and we at the fund are all devastated," IMF Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, said in a statement.
Canadian, Russian and Lebanese citizens were those among killed. According to the London Evening Standard, a British Foreign Office official confirmed the killing of a Briton in the suicide attack.
Kabul police said that the restaurant manager and owner, a Lebanese, was killed in the attack.
The suicide attack is likely to accelerate the mass departure of foreign officials after constant bombings in the past one year. Such attacks have increased after the western forces withdrew troops and handed control to Afghanistan's army and police, reports the Associated Press. By this year-end there will be a complete withdrawal of foreign troops.
Diplomats and other expatriates have already been warned of visiting places commonly frequented by them to prevent such attacks, reports the Agence France-Presse.
The suicide bombing comes in the wake of the Afghan President Hamid Karzai deliberating over signing a bilateral security agreement with the U.S. The pact would allow some United States troops to stay in Afghanistan and help the country fight the insurgents and bring back stability after years of war.
