President Ashraf Ghani met with the new Kuwaiti Emir Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, and the Prime Minister Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Sabah, on Monday.

During his short visit to the country, Ghani expressed his sympathies on the death of the former Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

Ghani and the prime minister stressed on enhancing bilateral relations.

“We highly appreciate your coming personally and be with us in our sad days and hope to have you in our happy days too,” said Sabah Al-Khalid.

Ghani said the unity of Gulf States was “vital for peace in Afghanistan and stability of the region and beyond,” the Presidential Palace statement said.

“Peace has moved from a wish to a process with an end-state of a sovereign, united, independent and democratic Afghanistan,” the Afghan president said.

“We pursue a political settlement to end the war, we are not only focused on peace-making but peace-building. We will strongly focus on some 45 districts suffered the most and implement reintegration, strengthening the social component of the peace,” he added.

Ghani also expressed interest in expanding bilateral ties with Kuwait during the meeting and welcomed the Kuwait Fund and investments in Afghanistan.

Ghani also flew to Qatar for a two-day official visit where he will be meeting their leaders and giving a talk at the Doha Institute.

Acting Foreign Minister Haneef Atmar said the president’s trip to Qatar was on the invitation of the Emir and bilateral meetings will be held for supporting the Afghan peace process and to expand ties between the two countries.

Parwan officials said three people were killed and four were injured when their car overturned along the Kabul-Parwan highway on Monday morning.

Abdul Salim Noori, spokesperson for the Parwan Police said that the incident took place at around 6:30 a.m. in the Robat area.

Noori said the station wagon (saracha) veered off course when its veered off course, hit the median and overturned.

The driver, a woman and a three-year-old child were killed while three others were injured.

Officials said that the reason of the accident was over speeding which led to the driver losing control of the vehicle.

Afghanistan saw a spike as 81 cases of Coronavirus were reported from the 341 samples tested in the past 24 hours, pushing the number of confirmed cases to 39,422.

The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) said that four people had succumbed to the virus while 27 had recovered.

The new cases were reported in the provinces of Herat (41), Daykundi (24), Kabul (5), Bamiyan (4), Takhar (2), Kunduz (2), Kandahar (1), Parwan (1) and Wardak (1).

There are 5,077 active COVID-19 cases in Afghanistan, with 1,466 dead and 32,879 recovered.

The convoy of Laghman Governor Rahmatullah Yarmal was targeted by a suicide car bomber in the provincial capital of Mehtar Lam on Monday morning.

Asadullah Dawlatzai, the governor’s spokesperson, confirmed the blast and said Yarmal had survived with slight injuries.

Laghman Police spokesperson Shafiullah Afghanyar said a car bomb targeted the governor’s convoy as he was crossing the Sultan Ghazi area on his way to work at around 10 a.m.

The Ministry of Interior (MoI) said that “terrorists” carried out the suicide attack that killed eight people and injured 30. According to the MoI, four bodyguards of the governor were killed while two of the wounded were also his security details.

The Ministry of Education said that the blast took place near a school and shattered its windows and inflicted some damage. Several of the students were also injured.

No individual or group has taken responsibility for the attack yet.

President Ashraf Ghani is leading a high-ranking government delegation to Kuwait and Qatar, said the Presidential Palace on Monday.

According to the statement, Ghani is accompanied by First Vice President Amrullah Saleh, acting Foreign Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar, National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib, several cabinet members, parliamentarians for the Lower House and the Senate, and other officials.

Heads of prominent Afghan media organisations are also accompanying him.

Ghani will reach Kuwait and offer fatiha to the late Emir, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah of Kuwait.

He will then travel to the Qatari capital for a two-day official visit to meet the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Prime Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdul Aziz al-Thani.

They will discuss efforts for deepening Afghan-Qatar bilateral relations and mutual cooperation in various area, the Presidential Palace said.

Ghani will also address a gathering at the Doha Institute which will be attended by prominent Qatari diplomats, academicians, researchers and students.

The trip takes place when the meetings between the contact groups of the Afghan government and the Taliban negotiating delegation are taking place.

Ghani is not expected to meet the Taliban officials.