The United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to Afghanistan, injured last month in a bombing while on a humanitarian mission, has died from his wounds, the UAE Ministry of Presidential Affairs said Wednesday, according to the official Emirati news agency WAM.
“(The Ministry) of Presidential Affairs mourns the righteous son of the nation, Juma Mohammed Abdullah al-Kaabi, who was martyred following injuries he sustained in a terrorist explosion in Kandahar,” a statement said.
The January 10 blast erupted at a guesthouse on Kandahar Gov. Humayun Azizi’s compound, said Samim Khpalwak, Azizi’s spokesman.
At the time, reports suggested Kaabi and Azizi were only lightly wounded.
The explosion killed 12 people, including five Emirati humanitarian workers, and wounded 14 others, WAM reported the day of the blast.
Kandahar’s deputy governor, Abdul Ali Shamsi, was also killed in the attack as was diplomat Yama Quraishi, head of Afghanistan’s passport section in Washington and the nephew of former Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s wife, officials said.
Quraishi was pursuing a master’s in conflict resolution at George Mason University in Virginia, said Abdullah Khodadad, spokesman for the Afghan Embassy in Washington.
Kandahar’s police and intelligence chiefs were also in attendance but escaped the attack unhurt, Khpalwak said.
The UAE has said it regards the incident as a terror attack.
The attack came on a deadly day In Afghanistan in which explosions ripped through Kabul and Helmand province as well. The Taliban took credit for the Kabul attacks. There was no claim of responsibility for the Kandahar bombing.
