Pakistan on Wednesday strongly condemned yesterday\u2019s heinous terrorist attack on a mosque in Herat, Afghanistan, resulting in loss of lives and injuries. At least six people including imam of the mosque and a three-year-old child were killed in the attack. \u201cThe people and government of Pakistan extend their heartfelt condolences to the people of Afghanistan. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families in this hour of grief,\u201d a Foreign Office statement said. \u201cPakistan condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including despicable attacks on places of worship,\u201d it added. While no group claimed the attack, the regional chapter of Da\u2019ish is the largest security threat in Afghanistan and has frequently targeted Shia communities. The Taliban government has pledged to protect religious and ethnic minorities since returning to power in August 2021, but rights monitors say they’ve done little to make good on that promise. The most notorious attack linked to Da\u2019ish since the Taliban takeover was in 2022, when at least 53 people \u2013 including 46 girls and young women \u2013 were slain in the suicide bombing of an education centre. Taliban officials blamed Da\u2019ish for the attack, which happened capital Kabul. Afghanistan’s new rulers claim to have ousted Da\u2019ish from the country and are highly sensitive to suggestions the group has found safe haven there since the withdrawal of foreign forces. Taliban authorities have frequently given death tolls lower than other sources after bombings and gun attacks, or otherwise downplayed them, in an apparent attempt to minimise security threats. A United Nations Security Council report released in January said there had been a decrease in Da\u2019ish attacks in Afghanistan because of “counter-terrorism efforts by the Taliban”. But the report said Da\u2019ish still had “substantial” recruitment in the country and that the militant group had “the ability to project a threat into the region and beyond”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan on Wednesday strongly condemned yesterday\u2019s heinous terrorist attack on a mosque in Herat, Afghanistan, resulting in loss of lives and injuries. At least six…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16693,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}