Republished June 22, 2020 - 8:04 AM
Original Publication Date June 22, 2020 - 5:06 AM
KABUL - Gunmen opened fire at a car belonging to the Afghan attorney general’s office on Monday, killing all five people inside, including two prosecutors, an official said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in the capital, Kabul, but the country has seen a recent spike in violence, with most attacks claimed by a local Islamic State affiliate.
The much larger Taliban insurgent group has scaled back its attacks since signing a peace agreement with the United States earlier this year. It denied any involvement in the shooting and said it would “investigate.”
Kabul police spokesman Ferdaws Faramarz said the two prosecutors, two other employees and the driver were killed.
Jamshed Rasooli, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said the prosecutors were members of the team supervising the release of Taliban prisoners as part of the agreement with the U.S. He blamed the attack on the “enemies of peace."
Since the Feb. 29 peace deal, the government has released over 3,000 Taliban prisoners and the insurgent group has freed 631 Afghan national police and army personnel from captivity. A total of 5,000 Taliban members and 1,000 Afghan forces are to be released under the deal.
The prisoner releases are intended to build trust between the two warring sides ahead of eventual intra-Afghan talks that will end the nearly 19-year war and allow U.S. forces to withdraw from their longest conflict.
In early June, IS claimed responsibility for a bombing at a mosque in Kabul that killed two people, including the prayer leader. Eight worshipers were wounded.
A week later, another prayer leader and three worshipers were killed in a bomb blast inside another mosque in Kabul. Eight people were wounded in that attack.
News from © The Associated Press, 2020