India House is a highly guarded and fortified compound close to several embassies in Kabul
"India's work in Afghanistan will go on, despite today's rocket attack," India's Ambassador in Afghanistan, Manpreet Vohra has told NDTV after a rocket exploded inside his residential compound in Kabul this morning.
"Luckily it fell away from any people so there are no injuries. We are here to help Afghans, work is important and will go on despite the difficult environment," he added.
The rocket exploded inside, on the tennis court of India House, the Indian envoy's residential compound. India House is a highly guarded and fortified compound and is close to several embassies and NATO's 'Resolute Support' Headquarters. The incident happened at a time when Kabul is under a security blanket for an international meeting and following separate attacks last week that have killed close to 200 people.
The Indian envoy also told NDTV, "We have had inputs terrorist groups may attempt to disrupt the Kabul Peace Conference."
The Kabul Process Peace and Security Conference is being attended by representatives of 27 countries, regional and international organisations.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani opened the conference by saying, "Our challenge is that we can't figure out what it will take to convince Pakistan that a stable Afghanistan helps them. Pakistan believes sponsoring terror is a controllable tool that can be switched on and off to achieve goals."
Ambassador Vohra also told NDTV, "Undoubtbly, Pakistan has to be on board for peace."
The Afghan Intelligence Service-NDS-has blamed it's Pakistani counterpart ISI for what it claims was a Haqqani network attack last week in Kabul's diplomatic area.
President Ghani today nearly doubled the number of killed in that attack to 150, making it the bloodiest attack in the Afghan capital since the Taliban was overthrown in 2001. The Taliban denied it was behind last week's attack and there was no claim from the Islamic State's local affiliate as well.
The Kabul Peace Conference initiated by Afghanistan is trying to build a regional and international consensus on security and the fight against terrorism. US President Donald Trump is to decide soon whether to agree to the Pentagon and send up to 5,000 more US troops to the 9,000 already in Afghanistan. Currently there are about 13,400 foreign troops in the country.