Journalist dies in Afghanistan as targeted killings continue

Violence increases amid stalled Taliban peace talks, with Isis claiming it was behind earlier journalist killing

Security forces at site of a previous bomb attack in Feroz Koh, the capital of Ghor province, on 15 December. Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock

Associated Press in Kabul-Fri 1 Jan 2021

An Afghan journalist and human rights activist has been shot and killed by unidentified gunmen in western Afghanistan, the fifth journalist to be killed in the war-ravaged country in the past two months, a provincial spokesman said.

Bismillah Adil Aimaq was on the road near Feroz Koh, the provincial capital of Ghor, returning home to the city after visiting his family in a village nearby, when gunmen opened fire at the vehicle.

According to the provincial governor’s spokesman, Arif Abir, others in the car, including Aimaq’s brother, were unharmed. Aimaq worked as the head of the local Radio Sada-e-Ghor station and was also a human rights activist in the province.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the shooting. A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, insisted the insurgents were in no way connected with the shooting.

Last week, Rahmatullah Nekzad, who headed the journalists’ union in Ghazni province, was killed in an attack by armed men outside his home. Nekzad was well known in the area and had contributed to the Associated Press since 2007. He had previously worked for the Al Jazeera satellite TV channel.

Afghanistan’s intelligence department claimed two perpetrators in that attack were subsequently arrested and aired video recordings of the two, with their purported confessions to the killing and to being in the Taliban. However, the Taliban denied involvement in the killing, calling it a cowardly act. Large swathes of Ghazni province are under Taliban control.

The Islamic State group, blamed for a series of attacks on a range of targets in Afghanistan in recent months, claimed it had killed another Afghan journalist earlier in December. Two assailants opened fire and killed the TV anchorwoman Malala Maiwand as she left her house in Nangarhar province. Her driver was also killed.

In November, two journalists were killed in separate bombings.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned the relentless attacks. The international press freedom group Reporters Without Borders has called Afghanistan one of the world’s deadliest countries for journalists.

This week, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission said targeted killings of Afghan journalists had negatively affected reporting in the country and led to self-censorship in the media. The statement said a number of female journalists had left their jobs in the provinces due to threats.

The statement further said that most journalists were not able to go out openly in some provinces and the government did not act when they reported the threats they were facing.

Violence has increased across Afghanistan, even as the Taliban and the Kabul government continue peace negotiations that began in September. The talks, after some recent procedural progress, have been suspended until early January and there is speculation the resumption could be further delayed.