A former Afghan journalist who became a spokesperson for the Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF), the national security company, was killed on Sunday in Kabul with two of his colleagues in a bomb blast targeting their vehicle, a- we learned from an official source.
Zia Wadan, who previously worked for several Afghan media outlets, and her colleagues were killed in the morning in the east of the capital, Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said.
“A vehicle carrying Zia Wadan was targeted by an improvised explosive device (…) Wadan and two of his colleagues were killed” and another person injured, he said.
Zia Wadan was the spokesperson for the APPF, an organization under the Interior Ministry that provides security services to international companies deployed in Afghanistan. The attack has so far not been claimed.
Targeted killings of journalists, politicians and rights defenders have become increasingly frequent in recent months in Afghanistan, where Kabul and several provinces are in the throes of an upsurge in violence.
A vice-governor of Kabul province, five journalists and the head of an independent election observation organization have notably been killed since November.
Afghan authorities and Washington blamed the Taliban for these attacks, although ISIS claimed responsibility for some.
In recent months, the capital and several Afghan provinces have been plagued by an upsurge in violence, despite peace talks between the Taliban and the government underway since September in Doha.
A new session of these negotiations opened on Wednesday in the capital of Qatar.