Pakistan to return Afghanistan ambassador four months after IS assassination attempt

Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan Ubaid-ur-Rehman Nizamani will return to Kabul this week, more than four months after he left the country following a failed attempt on his life by the Islamic State group. 

Ubaid-ur-Rehman Nizamani was appointed Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan in August 2022, and was in charge of one of the few diplomatic missions to remain in the country following the Taliban's capture of Kabul in August 2021. 

"The ambassador is due to arrive in Kabul before the Eid-ul-Fitr festival," a Pakistani official told Voice of America. Eid-ul-Fitr is the holiday marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and will be celebrated with three days of festivities in Afghanistan this coming weekend. 

Pakistan to send ambassador back to Kabulhttps://t.co/2UVebZOHlC #Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/I0aDjpaDMJ

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The decision followed an overnight telephone call on Saturday between Pakistan’s foreign minister Bilawal Ali Bhutto-Zardari and the Taliban administration’s foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, where Bhutto-Zardari reaffirmed Islamabad's "commitment to a stable, peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan".

Pakistan, like every other country in the world, has not recognised the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government, despite Nizamani's previous presence in Kabul.

Last November, Zardari said that Pakistan's policy was focused "sustaining engagement" with the Taliban but warned that the world was "running out of patience" with the hardline Islamist movement.

Nizamani was attacked in December 2022 while out for a routine walk on the Pakistani embassy grounds. He escaped unhurt, but his Pakistani guard was wounded in the attack. 

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility, saying at the time that its regional affiliate the Islamic State Khorasan Province.

Several countries including the United States condemned the attack. Islamabad called it an "assassination attempt" and recalled Nizamani to Pakistan.

Pakistan operated one of the few embassies in Kabul with most diplomatic missions closing after the Taliban's takeover of the country last year.

Pakistan's intelligence and the Taliban traditionally had key ties, analysts say, despite Islamabad's close military relations with the US.