A senior official of De Afghanistan Bank, (the Central Bank) was targeted in an IED explosion in Kabul early Sunday morning, the bank confirmed.

The bank said in a statement that Abdullah Dawrani, the head of the Financial Dispute Resolution Commission, was the target in an IED explosion at around 8.15 am this morning.

According to the statement, Dawrani was wounded and his bodyguard was killed in the blast.

The bank stated that another person was also injured in the explosion, which occurred in the Shah Shaheed area of PD8 of the city but did not reveal the person’s identity.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

This is the second targeted attack against Central Bank employees.

In November last year, Yama Siavash, a former TV news anchor, and an employee of the Central Bank, was killed in an IED explosion in PD9 in Kabul.

Meanwhile, an IED blast rattled Jalalabad city in eastern Nangarhar province on Sunday morning.

The blast happened in PD4 of the city, police confirmed.

Farid Khan, a spokesman for Nangarhar police told Ariana News that at least three civilians were wounded in that explosion.

SpaceX is expected to launch 143 satellites into space on a single Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday after having to postpone its launch day of Saturday at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida due to bad weather.

The decision to postpone came just six minutes before blast off, Space.com reported.

“Weather is looking a little dicey for our current liftoff time,” SpaceX production supervisor Andy Tran said about seven minutes before the rocket was scheduled to blast off, citing electrical fields.

Due to unfavorable weather, we are standing down from today’s launch; the team will continue with the countdown until T-30 seconds for data collection. Another launch attempt is available tomorrow, January 24 with a 22-minute window opening at 10:00 a.m. EST

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 23, 2021

Space.com reported that less than a minute later, the SpaceX team made the call to postpone the launch attempt entirely, not waiting for the clock to run out.

Electrical fields are a risk to rocket launches because they can prompt lightning formation during liftoff.

The Transporter-1 launch will be SpaceX’s first dedicated rideshare mission, carrying 133 assorted small satellites and 10 of the company’s Starlink internet satellites. When it launches, the mission will hold the record for most satellites deployed from a single rocket, Tran said.

The launch will be the fifth flight for the Falcon 9 first-stage booster. Its previous flights, all in 2020, include the company’s first-ever crewed launch, called Demo-2, in May 2020, which sent two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station for a two-month stay.

The booster also launched a military communications satellite for South Korea, a Cargo Dragon resupply ship to the station for NASA and a separate Starlink mission.

Afghan Minister of Foreign Affairs Haneef Atmar said the Taliban has to agree to a ceasefire if the group wants to exonerate itself of being responsible for the high levels of violence across Afghanistan.

In an interview with the Asharq Al-Awsat, an Arabic international newspaper, Atmar called on the Taliban to comply with its obligations and fulfill the commitments it made at the time of signing the US-Taliban deal in Doha last year.

Atmar stated that the Afghan government has met its obligations and has “released over 6,000 detainees and met all the demands made by the Taliban.”

He said that now the Taliban has to prove its “good intentions” in bringing peace to the country.

“Now the Taliban must prove to the Afghan people and the international community that they are fulfilling the promises and obligations they signed,” Atmar told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“The Afghan government sees that a ceasefire agreement would serve as the best evidence of the Taliban not seeking violence and that they are not responsible for the current level of violence in the country,” Atmar stated.