After Tolo Attack, Afghan Muslim Leaders Condemn Taliban, Call Journalists Sacred

That group emerged in Iraq and Syria, where it holds swaths of territory as part of what it calls its Islamic State caliphate, but has carried out or inspired attacks in many other places around the world as well.

Hours after the blast, however, a news anchor at Tolo TV, Afghanistan’s most popular television station and a division of the company, addressed the unidentified assailants and said, “You can not silence our voice”.

Tolo TV confirmed in a series of tweets that seven of its staff members had been killed.

The group in October declared TOLO and 1TV, another privately run news channel, as legitimate “military targets”.

Massoud Hossaini/AP Afghan men carries an injured man to a hospital after a suicide attack near the Russian embassy in Kabul.

Kabul police chief Gen. Abdul Rahman Rahimi said that the attackers had driven a auto packed with explosives into the minibus, causing the explosion.

Anti-government insurgency groups should immediately stop intentionally targeting civilians, Human Rights Watch said today. “Islam has never supported such repressions”, religious scholar Sayed Samiullah Sahibzada said, according to Tolo, the station that was targeted in the attack.

The European Union’s mission in Afghanistan, which along with the USA mission is a strong advocate of media freedom in Afghanistan, called it a “horrific crime and an indefensible attack on a civilian target and a clear violation of global law”. On Wednesday, the group drove a bomb-laden vehicle into a bus carrying Tolo employees during rush-hour traffic in Kabul. They have accused Tolo TV of colluding with Western intelligence networks.

“Attacks aimed at crushing independent media organizations in Afghanistan are a direct assault on the very foundation of Afghan democracy, a free and open press”, said the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

The peace push is being pursued by Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the US. Journalism has been a risky profession in Afghanistan for years.

A statement from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul condemned the attack. By “revealing the truth to the public, the media become unacceptable for the Taliban”, he said.