Attack on Afghan journalists threatens media freedom

The Taliban took responsibility for Wednesday’s bombing – which hit the bus as it was passing near the Russian Embassy – and declared Tolo TV a “spy agency”.

It is a part of the Moby Group, the largest media company in Afghanistan, which owns Tolo TV, TOLOnews, Arman FM and Arakozia 90.3 FM among other media outlets in the country.

“Afghan insurgents should respect the right for journalists to operate without fear for their lives from deliberate targeted attacks”, Gossman said.

In a statement, the insurgents warned this would not be the last attack on TOLO if the channel does not stop “spreading evil propaganda against the Taliban”.

Envoys from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States are scheduled to meet in Kabul later this week to discuss possible peace initiatives.

President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani has said the government of Afghanistan has considered incentives for the Taliban group to join the peace process.

Rajab Noorzayi said his daughter Zeinab worked for Kaboora and was on the bus at the time of the attack. As reported by the New York Times in October, the director of TOLOnews, Lotfullah Najafizada, said the Taliban’s statement-labeling reporters “enemy personnel”- “was the first of its kind in the past 14 or 15 years, and it took us by surprise”.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said: “Attacks aimed at crushing independent media organisations in Afghanistan are a direct assault on the very foundation of Afghan democracy – a free and open press”.

The carnage highlights the Taliban’s growing campaign of violence across Afghanistan despite an global push to jumpstart peace talks with the Islamist group. A suicide auto bomb attack close to the Russian embassy in the capital, Kabul, has killed many p… Biden held a trilateral meeting with Ghani Sharif to help the two neighbors co-operate and co-ordinate on counter-terrorism measures, the White House said. Defense Secretary Ash Carter visited Afghanistan’s eastern Nangahar province in December and discussed the growing IS presence there with Army Gen. John F. Campbell, the commander of USA and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces in Afghanistan.

The granting of expanded strike authority follows the State Department’s designation this month of IS’s Afghan entity, called “ISIL-K”, or Khorasan, as a foreign terrorist organization.