Afghanistan: Attack on Journalists Threatens Media Freedom

The airstrikes killed a total of 1,015 civilians, including 238 children under 18, 640 men and 137 women, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Thick smoke was seen rising from the scene of the blast, and many nearby vehicles were damaged.

Since the beginning of 2016, Kabul has been hit by at least at least six bomb attacks – in the most recent on Sunday a rocket landed near the Italian embassy, wounding two security guards.

Secretary of State John Kerry being interviewed by TOLO TV in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2011.

No groups, including the Taliban, have yet claimed responsibility for the deadly attack.

The blast came was the latest in a series of suicide attacks in Kabul that have coincided with efforts to revive peace process with Taliban insurgents.

The Afghan Health Ministry, meanwhile, has confirmed that at least 24 injured people had been admitted to hospital.

“No employee, anchor, office, news team and reporter of these TV channels holds any immunity”, the Taliban said at the time, rejecting their reporting as propaganda by “Satanic networks”.

On Wednesday, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told NBC News a bomber targeted the minibus outside the Russian Embassy in Kabul.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who is on an official visit to Switzerland, said his government “would not negotiate with those who shed the blood of innocent people” and promised stepped up crackdowns on militants. “Designating journalists and other civilians as “military targets” does not make them so, and deliberately attacking them constitutes a war crime”.

“They agreed to keep focus on the goal of ensuring peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan which was both in the interest of Afghanistan and the region”, an official statement said. There are often threats against individual journalists, but this was a rare targeted attack on a national media group.

According to the statement signed by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, the terror organization was not attacking the media in general.