Taliban honours suicide bombers offering their families clothes, cash, lands

Kabul: The Taliban government in Afghanistan has held a ceremony honouring suicide bombers who had targeted places and people in the former regime, the ministry spokesperson announced on Twitter. In the ceremony held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, the family members of the bombers were offered cash and land as gifts.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, acting interior minister and head of the military Haqqani network hosted the ceremony. Haqqani is a "specially designated global terrorist" with a ten million dollar bounty on his head as the US holds him responsible for organising extremely bloody suicide attacks. He is wanted for questioning by the FBI in connection with an attack on another hotel in Kabul in 2008 in which six people including an American citizen were killed.

"In his speech, the minister praised the Jihad and sacrifices of the martyrs and Mujahidin and called them heroes of Islam and the country," the ministry said in a statement on Twitter. Families of the suicide bombers were given clothing, 10,000 Afghanis in cash and promised plots of land, spokesman Qari Sayeed Khosti said.

The Taliban regime has also been beset by suicide bombings as a result of opposition from the Islamic State, in which hundreds of civilians have lost their lives. The most recent attack killed over 75 Shiite worshippers at a mosque in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan.