Taliban vehicle bomber kills seven Afghan TV channel employees

“Kabul, we lost seven staff members”, TOLO, a privately run news and entertainment station that is often critical of the Taliban, said on Twitter.

An injured victim from yesterday’s suicide attack near the Russian Embassy, receives treatment at a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016.

A Taliban suicide vehicle bomber targeted a minibus carrying journalists working for a private Afghan television channel yesterday, killing seven employees during evening rush hour close to the national parliament in Kabul, officials said. Moby Group is headquartered in Dubai and in 2012, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation took a minority stake in the company.

“The targeting of journalists reflects a depraved strategy to make media freedom a casualty of the ongoing conflict”, Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

The war shows no sign of abating, with the Taliban challenging Afghan forces on a number of fronts since the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation formally concluded their combat mission at the end of past year.

The Taliban said it carried out the attack.

Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said that four people were killed when a auto bomb was detonated in the west of Kabul on Wednesday, at around 5 p.m. local time.

Abdul Mujeeb Khalvatgar, the executive director for the independent Nai Supporting Open Media non-government organization, said the Tolo attack – the first direct assault on media professionals since 2001 – “not only targeted media but all social values, particularly human rights and civil society”. The Taliban also threatened 1TV, another popular station.

Afghan journalists have faced increasing intimidation and violence from both state and non-state figures in recent years.

Abdullah Abdullah, the Chief Executive Officer of Afghanistan – an extra constitutional post created in 2014 following a dispute over the presidential elections – condemned the attack and said he had drawn up plans for more security.

In a statement, spokesman Mujahid went on to say that the condemnations by Afghan leaders, the United States and other organizations “can never break our resolve and neither will propaganda and media warnings change our path”. In October the Taliban issued a specific threat against Tolo and other named Afghan news organisations, designating them as military objectives.