Bomb explosion kills two Afghan human rights workers in Kabul: Officials
Two Afghan human rights workers have lost their lives in a bomb explosion in the capital Kabul, officials say.
The deadly incident occurred in PD12 of Kabul in the Pul-e-Charkhi district, east of the capital, early on Saturday morning when the two employees were headed to their office, Afghanistan’s TOLOnews reported, citing Kabul police.
Separately, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) confirmed the incident, saying that 24-year-old donor coordinator Fatima Khalil and 41-year-old driver Ahmad Jawed Folad were killed in the blast.
“It is intolerable, assassinating human rights defenders is a war crime in the context of armed conflict,” the AIHRC further said, adding that its staff had previously been the target of attacks.
The Kabul police confirmed that the cause of the explosion had been a magnetic improvised explosive device (IED), which was attached under the AIHRC vehicle.
The district has been the scene of bomb attacks for many years.
The terror attack was widely denounced by diplomatic missions and rights organizations in the Afghan capital and they called for a thorough investigation into the incident, TOLOnews added.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet, but it bears the hallmark of attacks carried out either by the Taliban militant group or the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.
Reuters, however, quoted an unnamed Taliban spokesman as denying that his group was involved.
The bomb attack on Saturday comes at a sensitive time amidst heightened violence across the militancy-infested country, including increasing attacks against officials in urban centers.
The central government in Kabul and Taliban have already signaled that they were about to launch much-delayed peace talks, months after the militant group reached a peace agreement with the United States.
The US and its allies invaded Afghanistan in October 2001. While the invasion ended the Taliban’s rule in the country, it failed to eliminate the group, which is now in control of large parts of the country.
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