Attacks have continued to plague the capital since the Taliban took over, with the latest incident striking nearby the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Qatar strongly denounced a bombing that killed at least 20 people in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul on Wednesday, including a number of diplomats.

In a statement, Qatar’s foreign ministry said it rejects violence and terrorism “regardless of the motives and reasons”.

The local offshoot of the Islamic State militant group, ISIS-K, claimed responsibility for the attack on Wednesday, though there have been discrepancies in the reporting of the death toll.

Kabul police chief spokesman Khalid Zadran said security teams were deployed to the site and put the death toll at five, while another Taliban official said it was as high as 20.

ISIS-K said “several ‘diplomatic’ employees” were among some 20 dead, though that claim has yet to be officially evidenced. However, one Twitter user appeared to corroborate this.

“Today, my uncle, a senior diplomat, my source of inspiration and strength is brutally killed at the gate of ministry of Foreign Affairs during a suicide attack in #Kabul, Afghanistan,” freelance writer Aisha Ahmad said.

Another local journalist, Syed Zabiullah Langari, said: “These young Afghan diplomts were killed today in a suicide attack in front of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ISIS-K terrorist group claimed responsibilitt for the attack,”

Ustad Fareedun, an official at the Taliban-run information ministry, told Reuters that the bomber had planned to enter the foreign ministry but failed. 

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Obaidullah Baheer, a lecturer at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, said that the discrepancies in casualty figures are “troubling”.

The Taliban claims to have improved security since storming back to power in 2021, but there have been dozens of bomb blasts and attacks, many claimed by the local ISIS-K.

At least five Chinese nationals were wounded last month when armed men stormed a hotel popular with Chinese business people in Kabul.

That raid was claimed by ISIS-K, which also took responsibility for an attack on Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul in December that Islamabad denounced as an “assassination attempt” against their ambassador.

Four people were killed and 25 wounded in an attack on a mosque on the grounds of the interior ministry in Kabul last October.

Two Russian embassy staff members were killed in a suicide bombing outside their mission in September in another attack claimed by the ISIS-K.