Pakistani envoy returns to Kabul more than 4 months after attack on embassy

Published April 17, 2023
A file photo of Pakistan’s Chargé d’Affaires to Afghanistan Ubaidur Rehman Nizamani.
— Pakistan Embassy Afghanistan Twitter
A file photo of Pakistan’s Chargé d’Affaires to Afghanistan Ubaidur Rehman Nizamani. — Pakistan Embassy Afghanistan Twitter

Pakistani Chargé d’Affaires (CdA) to Afghanistan Ubaidur Rehman Nizamani has returned to Kabul more than four months after he survived an attempt on his life, it emerged on Monday.

“Yes, I have resumed my responsibilities,” Nizamani told Dawn.com.

Foreign Office (FO) Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch and the Pakistani embassy’s press counsellor Tahir Nawaz did not respond to Dawn.com’s request for comment.

The Afghan foreign ministry’s deputy spokesperson, Hafiz Zia Ahmad Takal, also did not provide a comment.

In December last year, Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul came under attack, leaving one security guard critically injured. The FO had confirmed that Nizamani, who remained unhurt in the attack, was the target. The banned Islamic State group’s Khorasan chapter (IS-K) had claimed responsibility.

At the time, Nizamani was in Kabul for less than a month since he took over the charge as head of mission, replacing former ambassador Mansoor Ahmed Khan on November 4, 2022.

Ten days after the attack, five Chinese nationals were wounded in a bombing-and-shooting attack on a Kabul hotel, prompting China to ask its nationals to leave the country.

In January, Afghan Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said that a network of Daesh militants involved in the attack on the embassy and the hotel where Chinese nationals were staying had been killed in an operation.

In February, official sources had dismissed rumours of an evacuation of diplomats while insisting that Islamabad was still awaiting security assurances from the Afghan government before sending him back.

Meanwhile, Nizamani was part of the Pakistani delegation that went to Kabul during the same month for talks with the interim Afghan government on security-related matters where the two sides discussed the growing threat of terrorism in the region, particularly from the banned militant groups Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and IS-K.

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