Anisa Sadat
August 18, 2020, 8:18 AM EST
Afghan presidential palace was hit by rocket on Tuesday injuring six members of the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s personal security guards.
Kabul became under rocket attack as Afghan officials and people celebrate Afghanistan’s 101 Independence Day and commemorating ceremony was going on inside the Presidential Palace. The rocket hit the Palace while President Ghani just wrapped up his speech. The President was unharmed but six members of his security team were wounded according to anonymous sources quoted by AFP.
The interior ministry did not immediately comment on the incident, but during a press conference spokesman Tareq Arian said 14 rockets were fired out of two vehicles in the capital, mostly hitting civilian homes.
“Unfortunately, 10 civilians including four children and one woman have been wounded,” Arian said.
No one has claimed the responsibility for Tuesday’s attack. The attack occurred as the Afghan government and the Taliban are preparing to start the intra-Afghan peace negotiations in the coming days.
The peace talks are conditioned on the release of the last 400 Taliban prisoners which so far 80 of them released by the Afghan government after the grand assembly approved the release two weeks ago.
In exchange for the release of the rest of the 400 remaining prisoners, the Afghan government has asked the Taliban to release all Afghan prisoners. Among the 400 prisoners some are accused of carrying out suicide attacks against Afghan civilians and foreign forces. France and Australia are the two countries asked the Afghan government to stop the release of those 400.
