Seven killed in explosion at Chinese restaurant

Beijing has demanded the Taliban government protect its citizens after an explosion at a Chinese-run restaurant in the Afghan capital Kabul killed at least seven people.

Six Afghans and one Chinese national were killed, and several more injured, in the blast at a Chinese restaurant in a heavily-guarded part of the city centre on Monday, officials told the media.

The jihadist group Islamic State (IS) said it was behind the attack – although police in Kabul said the “nature of the explosion is unknown so far and is being investigated”.

China has urged its citizens not to travel to Afghanistan, where the Taliban seized control in 2021. Islamic State has claimed numerous bombings since then.

Speaking on Tuesday, Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun added that China had “made urgent representations with the Afghan side, demanding that the Afghan side spare no effort to treat the injured, further take effective measures to protect the safety of Chinese citizens”.

City police spokesman Khalid Zadran said the explosion took place near the kitchen of the Chinese Noodle restaurant, which is located under a guesthouse in the capital’s Shahr-e-Naw area.

Dejan Panic, the Afghanistan director of humanitarian group EMERGENCY, said they received “20 people” at their hospital, seven of whom were dead on arrival. Four women and a child were also among the injured.

Footage circulating on social media of the aftermath of the explosion showed a large hole torn in the side of the building, Reuters news agency said.

Eyewitnesses told BBC Afghan that a car outside the restaurant had been completely destroyed, and that locals had helped rush people in “critical condition” to hospital. Large sheets were later put up to cover the damaged building.

Police spokesman Zadran said the restaurant mainly served Chinese Muslims, and was run by a Chinese Muslim man from the Chinese region of Xinjiang, his wife and his Afghan business partner.

In its statement, the local branch of IS said that China was on “the list” of its targets, especially given China’s “increasing crimes against the oppressed Uyghur Muslims”.

China has been accused of committing crimes against humanity against the Uyghur population and other mostly-Muslim ethnic groups in the north-western region of Xinjiang.

The Chinese government has denied all allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

IS has previously said it was behind an attack on a Chinese-owned hotel in Kabul back in 2022, in which three of the attackers died and at least two other people were injured.

More recently, Chinese nationals just over the border in Tajikistan have been targeted by unknown attackers. In November, six Chinese nationals were killed in three separate incidents. Beijing has told its citizens to leave the Tajik-Afghan border.