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KABUL: An explosion outside the Russian Embassy in Kabul killed at least six people, including two staff from the diplomatic mission, and injured several others, police in the Afghan capital said on Monday.

The blast went off at around 11 a.m. as the attacker was shot dead by security forces approaching the entrance of the embassy’s consular section, in one of the first such attacks since the Taliban took power last year.

“A suicide bomber wanted to detonate himself in the crowd near the Russian Embassy,” Khalid Zadran, the Taliban’s Kabul police spokesperson, said in a statement.

“But before reaching his goal, the security forces targeted him, which caused the explosion.”

Police have since cleared the area and launched a “comprehensive investigation,” into the attack. At least four civilians and two embassy staff were killed in the blast, Zadran has confirmed.

The explosion occurred as dozens of people were lining up in front of the embassy, according to eyewitnesses’ accounts.

“I just reached the area when I heard a very powerful sound of explosion,” Abdul Ghafar, a high school student in Kabul, told Arab News.

“I saw several bodies on the street,” he said, adding that he had seen at least 20 killed and injured at the scene.

A boy who was wounded after a suicide bomber detonated explosives near the entrance of the Russian embassy, is treated inside a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, September 5, 2022. (REUTERS)

Mohammad Javed, who was working at a shop located near the embassy when the blast happened, said there had been around 60 people queuing near the mission.

“For a few moments there was just smoke, and then we saw several bodies on the ground,” Javed told Arab News.

The Russian Foreign Ministry, which confirmed the killing of at least two of their employees in Kabul, said officials from Moscow are “in close contact with Afghanistan’s security services” following Monday’s attacks.

Russia is one of the few countries which have maintained an embassy in Kabul after the Taliban returned to power over a year ago.

During the US-led occupation of Afghanistan, bombings targeting foreign missions had occurred several times in Kabul, leading to embassies and hotels fortifying their properties with razor wire and blast walls.

But the incidents have decreased dramatically since last year, as Afghanistan has seen improved security across the country, although several attacks — some claimed by the Daesh — have taken place targeting the Taliban and public places, including mosques.

No group has claimed responsibility for Monday’s blast as of publication time.

The Afghan Foreign Ministry in a statement said it “strongly condemns” the incident, as it expressed condolences to the Russian government and people, as well as families of the victims.

“Our security agencies have started a comprehensive investigation regarding the incident and will take serious steps for the security of the embassy so that such potential threats do not hinder the work of the embassy,” Abdul Qahar Balkhi, spokesperson of the Afghan foreign ministry, said.

JAKARTA: An earthquake of magnitude 6.2 struck the region of Papua in Indonesia, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said. The quake struck about 262 km (163 miles) east-northeast of Biak in Indonesia, and was at a depth of 10 km, EMSC added.

LONDON: In November, the Prince of Wales and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, embarked on the first overseas tour by any member of the British royal family since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, which had brought a temporary halt to such trips two years earlier.

To those familiar with the interests closest to the prince’s heart, the choice of the Middle East as the destination came as no surprise.

Visiting Jordan and Egypt, the prince was honoring his lifelong commitment to the building of bridges between different faiths and cultures, and exercising his fascination with, and love of, a region with which he has always been deeply engaged.

On his visit to Jordan, the prince was keen to express his admiration for the work being done in the country on behalf of refugees, many of whom had been displaced by the war in Syria.

He has been particularly concerned with the plight of refugees throughout the region. In January 2020 he was announced as the first UK patron of the International Rescue Committee, the organization working in 40 countries “to help people to survive, recover, and gain control of their futures.”

In Jordan, he met and spoke to some of the 750,000 people being hosted by the country, many of whom rely on support from donor countries, including the UK and Saudi Arabia.

The prince’s sense of the history of the region, which in many cases is linked inextricably with that of his own country, is keen. While in Jordan, he planted a tree to symbolize the UK-Jordanian partnership, and to mark the centenary of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan — a product of the allied defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, and which was finally granted independence from the British mandate in 1946.

In Cairo, the prince and the duchess were welcomed by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. It was the prince’s second trip to Egypt. He had visited previously in 2006, as part of a tour that also included Saudi Arabia and which had been carried out to promote better understanding and tolerance between religions, and in support of environmental initiatives and the promotion of sustainable job opportunities and training for young people.

After visiting Cairo’s Al-Azhar mosque, the prince underlined his commitment to interfaith harmony in a speech at Al-Azhar University.

He said: “I believe with all my heart, that responsible men and women should work to restore mutual respect between religions, and we must do everything in our power to overcome the mistrust that poisons the lives of many people.”

Similar to his mother, who passed away on Thursday, Charles has always been devoted to ecumenism and the promotion of harmony between faiths.

As King Charles III, he now inherits Queen Elizabeth II’s role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and the title Defender of the Faith — and, like her before him, he has always made clear that he sees this role as being better defined as defender of all faiths.

During a BBC interview in 2015, he said: “It has always seemed to me that, while at the same time being Defender of the Faith, you can also be protector of faiths.

“The Church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in this country.”

With more than 3 million Muslims in the UK, Islam is the second-largest religion in the country, and Charles’ interest in the religion is well known.

In 2015, during a Middle East tour that took him to Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, it emerged that the prince had spent the previous six months learning Arabic with a private tutor, in order to be able to read the Qur’an in its original language, and to be better able to decipher inscriptions in museums and other institutions during his many trips to the region.

A royal aide revealed that the prince was “enormously interested in the region.”

Known for his passion for Islamic history, art, and culture — at the University of Cambridge in the 1960s, the prince read archaeology, anthropology, and history at Trinity College — Charles has always taken a close interest in the heritage of the Middle East.

In particular, he has followed closely and several times has visited the extensive archaeological work taking place in and around AlUla and the ancient Nabataean city of Hegra, inscribed in 2008 as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

On a visit to Saudi Arabia in 2013, he enjoyed a tour of the Wadi Hanifa and watched with great interest a presentation on the Diriyah project, which is transforming the historic Wadi into a destination for global cultural tourism, with the preserved ruins of Diriyah, capital of the First Saudi State and birthplace of Saudi Arabia, at its heart.

Charles is a keen artist, and that interest is reflected on his personal website, princeofwales.gov.uk — in the throes of being updated to reflect his new standing — on which four watercolors he painted in the Middle East are showcased.

The earliest, dated 1986, is of a ship in Port Suez, Egypt. Two others are landscapes painted in Saudi Arabia — a view of Wadi Arkam in the remote southwest Asir province in 1999, and a study of a historic palace in Diriyah, painted in 2001.

Since his investiture as Prince of Wales in 1969, Charles has made innumerable visits to countries in the region, formally and informally. Private visits aside, as Prince of Wales Charles made five official visits to Jordan, six to Qatar, seven to both Kuwait and the UAE, and 12 to Saudi Arabia.

It was a tradition that began in 1986 when he embarked on a nine-day tour of the Middle East, during which he visited Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia with his then wife, Diana, Princess of Wales, from whom he would separate in 1992.

Just how seriously Charles takes his and Britain’s links with the region is underlined by the number of meetings he has had at home and abroad, with members of Middle Eastern royal families — more than 200 in the past decade, including with those of Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the UAE.

As Prince of Wales, it was part of Charles’ job to promote the mutual interests of Britain and its allies, and in pursuit of that duty he paid many formal and informal visits to Saudi Arabia, the UK’s most influential ally in the region.

The prince’s role as a bridge between his country and all the nations of the Gulf, in particular, has always been mutually beneficial. For example, the day after a visit to Riyadh in February 2014, during which the prince gamely accepted an invitation to don traditional Arab dress and take part in a sword dance, it was announced that British aerospace company BAE had completed a deal for the sale to the Kingdom of 72 Typhoon fighter jets.

As the Prince of Wales, Charles has had many charitable interests, but perhaps none has been as global in its outlook as The Prince’s Foundation, dedicated to “realizing the Prince of Wales’ vision of creating communities for a more sustainable world.”

Focused on education, appreciation of heritage, and the creation of equal opportunities for young people, at home and abroad, the foundation has run satellite programs in more than 20 countries, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where it operates permanent centers.

In Saudi Arabia, the foundation established a building arts and crafts vocational training program in Jeddah’s old city, Al-Balad, giving students the opportunity to become involved in the Ministry of Culture’s restoration projects in the city.

During the Winter at Tantora festival, held in AlUla from Jan. 10 to March 21, 2020, the foundation staged an exhibition titled “Cosmos, Color and Craft: The Art of the Order of Nature in AlUla,” and ran a series of hands-on workshops in conjunction with the Royal Commission for AlUla.

In the UAE, since 2009 the foundation has been working with the Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation to deliver traditional arts workshops in the capital.

On his visit to Egypt last year, the prince met young craftspeople from the Egyptian Heritage Rescue Foundation and The Jameel School. Supported by The Prince’s Foundation, the school teaches young Egyptians classes in traditional Islamic geometry, drawing, color harmony, and arabesque studies.

Unsurprisingly, the foundation has attracted donations from many influential friends in the region. As the Prince of Wales, Charles’ bonds with the royal families of the region have always been deeper than the necessary ties demanded by wise diplomacy.

For example, he considered King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia as a personal friend and, after the monarch passed away in January 2015, flew to Riyadh to pay his final respects and express his condolences to his successor, King Salman, in person.

In Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who died on Thursday, the Middle East and its peoples had a lifelong friend, close to its leaders and committed to building and maintaining bridges between faiths and cultures.

In King Charles III, that precious friendship clearly is destined to continue unbroken.

BERLIN: Four people were detained after police made their largest ever seizure of heroin in Germany, prosecutors said on Friday, with police confiscating some 700 kilogrammes (1,543 pounds) as part of an operation against a gang smuggling narcotics from Iran. The drugs were seized in the port city of Hamburg at the end of August. The detentions were made overnight on Thursday, when police searched 10 premises in the eastern cities of Dresden and Chemnitz, in Hamburg and in the Netherlands. They seized documents, laptops, storage devices, smartphones and vehicles. The detained were an unnamed 40-year-old Turkish-Serbian suspected ringleader, a 35-year-old Iranian in the Netherlands, a 54-year-old German suspected of using his firm’s logistics fleet to transport drugs, and a 53-year-old Turkish go-between. One was detained in Germany, one in Spain, and two others in the Netherlands. Prosecutors are seeking the extraditions of the three who were arrested abroad, while a court in Dresden is due to decide on Friday whether the person detained in Germany should be placed under arrest.

LONDON: The appointment of Liz Truss as the UK’s new prime minister represents as much an opportunity as a moment of suspense for Gulf relations, with her enthusiasm for the region matched by her being perceived as a “wild card,” according to analysts.

An early challenge arrived with the death of the longest serving monarch in British history in Truss’ very first week in office. The death of Queen Elizabeth II at Balmoral Castle on Thursday thrust the country into a royal succession at a time of economic upheaval and political transition.

Paying homage to a figure who was viewed by Britons as a beacon of stability and a rare symbol of continuity and national unity, Truss described the late queen as “the rock on which modern Britain was built” while expressing hope that “in the difficult days ahead, we will come together with our friends ... to celebrate her extraordinary lifetime of service.”

Although her immediate focus will undoubtedly be on the domestic cost-of-living crisis and spiraling energy bills, there are growing calls for Truss to ensure continuity in strengthening relations with the Gulf states.

Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, expects Truss will prioritize the finalization of the UK-GCC free trade agreement announced in June, which is potentially worth £33.5 billion ($38.5 billion) in new deals.

“Trade deals will speak to her primary objective upon taking office, and that’ll be getting the economy sorted,” said Doyle. “There are warm relations between the UK and the GCC and I do not see that changing dramatically. On this, it’ll likely be a ‘steady as you go’ relationship.”

Concurring with this assessment, David Jones MP, a Conservative and Truss supporter who chairs the UK-UAE All-Party Parliamentary Group, said the new prime minister “recognizes the importance” of the GCC countries.

“As former international trade secretary and foreign secretary, Ms. Truss fully appreciates the crucial importance to the UK of maintaining strong relations with our steadfast regional ally, the UAE,” Jones told Arab News.

“I have no doubt that, under her leadership, those relations will be strengthened still further into a mainstay of regional and global security.”

While hosting the GCC foreign ministers in December last year, Truss herself stressed that “closer economic and security ties with our Gulf partners will deliver jobs and opportunities for British people and help make us all safer.”

But for Doyle, these comments also exposed areas of concern, notably the new prime minister’s “transactional” approach to foreign policy, which tends to ignore the importance of building strong interpersonal relationships.

“Truss showed during her time in the foreign office a very transactional nature when dealing with other countries — one devoted to trade, the economy, and what Britain could get out (of) it. It was looking very much at the short-term benefits,” said Doyle.

“I don’t expect to see that change as she steps up into the new role and I think her focus when it comes to the Middle East will be very much about getting the free trade deal over the line.”

Such a short-term focus in strategy ties in with what Bronwen Maddox, director and chief executive of Chatham House, considers the core of Truss’ perceived political identity as a “disruptor” or even a “wild card.”

For Maddox, the new prime minister’s reputation and apparent desire to deliberately inject unpredictability into proceedings could be “both a strength and a potentially calamitous weakness.”

“A degree of improvisation in a leadership campaign is inevitable, but the priority of the next UK prime minister should be serious. If she indulges this (disruptor approach) without good judgment, she could do real damage to Britain’s prospects and world standing,” she added.

Such concerns appear well-founded and widely shared. According to Doyle, Truss demonstrated a distinct lack of interest or commitment to global affairs during her time at the foreign office.

“Foreign relations should be about building relations, long-term, but she does not seem to have a vision for foreign relations and quite what that means remains an unknown. But her time in the post lacked any real investment in these things. I’d expect her to be a pretty domestic-focused prime minister.”

Lina Khatib, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, says she would like to see this change, suggesting a priority for Truss and her new foreign secretary, James Cleverly, would be to restore a dedicated cabinet position for the region.

“The Middle East portfolio remains hefty and complex and requires diplomatic engagement to match,” Khatib told Arab News.

“This not only means restoring diplomatic cabinet distribution to give the region the attention it requires but also revising the UK’s approach, putting Iran’s regional interventions high on the agenda and in parallel to efforts on the Iran nuclear deal.”

Cleverly takes up the UK government’s foreign brief having previously served in a junior foreign office post managing the Middle East and North Africa portfolio, which included responsibility for dealing with Iran over the detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

He traveled extensively in the Middle East during this time, including trips to the UAE, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar. He was in Bahrain when the country appointed its first ambassador to Israel under the Abraham Accords, which he described as “genuinely a joyous occasion.”

Cleverly was an early supporter of Truss’ bid for the leadership, believing she would lay down a more robust challenge to Iran than her predecessors.

Truss won the grueling two-month battle to replace Boris Johnson on Sept. 5, beating her rival Rishi Sunak with 57 percent of the vote — the tightest margin of victory since Iain Duncan Smith was elected party leader in 2001 while the Conservatives were in opposition. 

Doyle agrees that Truss will likely “take a more hawkish view than Johnson” when it comes to Iran. “Where I do expect that a Truss premiership will be even tougher and take a less helpful line is on Israel-Palestine,” he told Arab News.

“Under Johnson, government policy was dire and extremely partisan to one side: Israel. Truss will go even further, including reviewing moving the UK’s embassy to Jerusalem. It will be a deeply unfair and wrong approach to adopt.”

There are some Middle East watchers who are broadly optimistic about relations under Truss’ stewardship. Charlotte Leslie, director of the Conservative Middle East Council, believes Truss proved her bona fides during her time as foreign secretary.

“Personalities really matter in negotiations and Truss has demonstrated that she sees the GCC as close allies and friends, so I expect to see solid agreements reached that will quickly grow the almost £30 billion ($34.5 billion) already invested in each other’s economies,” Leslie told Arab News.

“The new prime minister will be looking to demonstrate the UK remains a strong, reliable, global friend and ally of choice. In a turbulent world, friends are more important than ever.”

WASHINGTON: Russia’s invasion caused over $97 billion in direct damages to Ukraine through June 1, but it could cost nearly $350 billion to rebuild the country, a report released Friday by the World Bank, Ukrainian government and European Commission shows. It said Ukraine had also suffered $252 billion in losses through disruptions to its economic flows and production, as well as extra expenses linked to the war, while the displacement of one-third of all Ukrainians was expected to jack up its poverty rate to 21 percent from just 2 percent before the war. Overall, the report estimated Ukraine’s reconstruction needs would reach $349 billion, as of June 1, or about 1.6 times the country’s $200 billion gross domestic product in 2021. Of that amount, $105 billion was needed in the short term to address urgent priorities, such as rebuilding thousands of damaged or destroyed schools and over 500 hospitals. It was also imperative to prepare for the upcoming, likely brutal winter by repairing homes and restoring heating, and purchasing gas. All the numbers were preliminary and would likely rise as the war continued, the report noted. “The impact of the invasion will be felt for generations, with families displaced and separated, disruptions to human development, destruction of intrinsic cultural heritage and reversal of a positive economic and poverty trajectory,” it said. Arup Banerji, World Bank regional country director for Eastern Europe, said the findings were based on a “very strong” internationally accepted methodology, and should underpin a Group of Seven recovery conference planned in Berlin on Oct. 25. He said Ukraine’s initial estimates that it would cost $750 billion to rebuild its economy were likely extrapolations from the damage and economic losses, but it was unclear what exact methodology had been used to arrive at that estimate, he said. The report offered the first comprehensive damage assessment of the war’s impact on Ukraine and laid the groundwork for funding its recovery plan, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said in a posting on Telegram. Oleg Ustenko, a senior economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Ukraine needed commitments from donor countries that they would continue to provide $5 billion in funding each month throughout next year. Banerji agreed that Ukraine would need external support through 2023, unless there was a some “really drastic change in the course of the war.” He said the economy was doing “slightly better” than feared, and its gross domestic product was now seen shrinking by 30-35 percent in 2022 instead of the 45 percent contraction forecast initially. Banerji said the report had factored in the investments needed to “build back better” and help Ukraine modernize its Soviet-era infrastructure. He cautioned that the pace of reconstruction would depend to a large extent on the course of the war, and the ability of the Ukrainian public and private sector to absorb the funding. “If you think of the enormous cost of housing, this will actually take many years, realistically, to be rebuilt and repaired,” he said.