JALALABAD, Afghanistan – Three women who worked for a local news agency were shot dead in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday. This adds to the bloody number of Afghan media workers and journalists killed at alarming rates over the past year.
The women were on their way home from work at Enikass radio and television in the busy city of Jalalabad when they were killed in two separate attacks, according to Shokorullah Pasoon, the broadcaster’s publishing director, who barely offered details about the incident that took place.
Islamic State soon assumed responsibility for the attack, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which oversees the terrorist group’s announcements.
The victims were Mursal Wahidi, 25, Sadia Sadat, 20 and Shahnaz Raofi, 20, who worked in a department that records voice overs for foreign programs, Pasoon said. A fourth woman was wounded in one of the attacks and was taken to hospital, according to a provincial hospital spokesman.
Malalai Maiwand, 26, a television and radio host at Enikass, was shot in the same way in December. The Islamic State subsidiary in the country also took responsibility for this murder.
The Nangarhar police chief initially attributed the attack to the Taliban and said law enforcement officers made an arrest on Tuesday.
The Taliban denied any involvement in the attacks on Tuesday. They were blamed for much of the wave of attacks that began in earnest following the February 2020 peace agreement negotiated between the insurgent group and the United States under former President Donald J. Trump.
The death of women is a dangerous time in Afghanistan as security continues to deteriorate across the country and President Biden considers sticking to the May 1 withdrawal deadline set by his predecessor. Emboldened Taliban either want to win on the battlefield or force the Afghan government to surrender in their ongoing peace talks in Qatar.
Shaharzad Akbar, chairman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, described the attack as “terrible” on social media on Tuesday. “Afghan women have been attacked and killed too often,” Ms. Akbar said in a tweet.
After the 2001 US invasion, which saw the Taliban and its extremist form of Islamic law banning women from most jobs dismissed, the Afghan media and news networks encouraged a new generation of women despite the endless war around them Afghans and women in particular.
According to a recent report by the United Nations, more than 30 media workers and journalists have been killed in Afghanistan since 2018. According to the UN report, at least six journalists and media workers were killed in such attacks from September 2020 to January this year.
Civilian casualties rose overall after peace negotiations between the government and the Taliban began in September, particularly a wave of targeted killings of judges, prosecutors, civil society activists and journalists.
The recent attacks were “deliberate, deliberate and deliberate crackdown on human rights defenders, journalists and media workers,” the UN report said. “With the clear aim of silencing certain people by killing them while sending a terrifying message to the wider community.”
The New York Times documented the deaths of at least 136 civilians and 168 security personnel in such targeted killings and assassinations in 2020, more than in almost any other year of the war.
The wanton deaths, often in populated areas such as Kabul and other cities, have sparked public outcry for better security among many Afghans, especially among vulnerable people such as journalists and human rights defenders. Government investigations and accountability for the murders have been rare at best.
The Afghan Journalists’ Security Committee said in a statement that “practical and effective steps must be taken to ensure the safety of journalists”.
Although the Taliban rarely takes responsibility for such attacks, the insurgents use them for propaganda purposes, in particular to undermine the Afghan government.
But the Taliban aren’t the only ones taking advantage of the chaos. Afghan and US officials believe that some of the killings last year were carried out by people affiliated with the government or other political parties.
The role of Islamic State in these targeted attacks is also increasing. Although the terrorist group appears militarily trapped in the mountainous east of Afghanistan, it has shifted its strategy from conquering territory on the battlefield to mass-casualty attacks in cities like Kabul and Jalalabad.
In November, the group claimed their fighters were responsible for killing more than 20 people at Kabul University before blowing up the city a few weeks later, killing at least eight people. And in December, the Islamic State took responsibility for the murder of Ms. Maiwand, the journalist at Enikass who had worked there for seven years.
According to her family, Ms. Maiwanda’s mother, an education activist, was killed by unknown armed men about 10 years earlier.
Zabihullah Ghazi reported from Jalalabad and Thomas Gibbons-Neff from Kabul. Najim Rahim and Fatima Faizi reported from Kabul.
