JAN. 20, 2016
Taliban Suicide Bomber Strikes Packed Bus in Kabul
By DAVID JOLLY and JAWAD SUKHANYAR
KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Taliban served notice in October that they would begin targeting the two largest Afghan television networks for attack, accusing them of having falsely reported that insurgents had raped female students during their capture of the northern city of Kunduz.
A Taliban statement at the time said [1] that the reports were a "clear, shameless example of propaganda by these satanic networks" and that the insurgency would treat the outlets "as military objectives because of their disrespectful and hostile actions toward the Afghan mujahid nation."
On Wednesday, the insurgents made good on their threats, when a Taliban suicide bomber drove a car loaded with explosives into a minibus carrying employees of a production company working for the country's largest television network, Tolo TV.
The explosion was powerful enough to rattle windows miles away. Television footage showed police officers and ambulances at the scene, as emergency workers rushed to evacuate the wounded.
The attack, at the height of the evening rush hour in the capital, left six employees of the production company dead, the police said, as well as a seventh person who could not immediately be identified. At least 25 others were wounded.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement, saying the bomber had specifically targeted Tolo TV employees. "Thanks to Almighty God and his support, and with the prayers of those Muslims who were vexed by spy workers of Tolo, the attack was successful," the statement said. "The vehicle was destroyed and swallowed by fire with all its spies, and its corrupt passengers killed."
It warned that more attacks would follow unless Tolo TV apologized for its "malicious acts" to the Taliban, to the Afghan people "and especially to the residents of Kunduz." The Taliban spokesman later posted an image [2] on Twitter of the Tolo TV logo crossed out with a large red X.
It was the fourth attack in Kabul this month. The Taliban have claimed three of those, even as they have pressed military offensives on population centers in other parts of Afghanistan.
The Taliban have been on the offensive since the United States and its allies withdrew most combat troops at the end of 2014, and the insurgents now control more territory than at any time since they were driven from power in 2001. At the same time, a barrage of militant attacks in major cities -- including at least one from the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan -- has left the public wary.
The employees killed on Wednesday worked for Kaboora Production, a unit of Moby Group, the media company that owns the Tolo network. Moby, whose backers include Rupert Murdoch, is controlled by the family of its chairman and chief executive, Saad Mohseni.
Moby Group's three television channels interrupted their regular programming on Wednesday evening to broadcast verses of the Quran, with a ticker at the bottom of the screen announcing the death of the Kaboora employees.
"We salute you on your martyrdom, our colleagues," an anchor said as the news broadcast went live again. "They martyred you to silence our voice, but they will never achieve their evil goals."
After the Taliban threat last year, Mr. Mohseni told The Daily Beast [3] in November that the company had to ask: "Are the facilities safe? Do we have enough security people? What are the routines? How do people get home? When they travel around the city, who's the most vulnerable? Who lives where? There was a whole list of things we had to go through."
"It's serious," he said in the interview, "but we are also very serious in the way we cover things, and it wasn't going to stop us from doing our jobs."
The Afghan government's chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, condemned the attack, saying, "An attack on media workers who work with dedication and neutrality under difficult circumstances reveals the true face of the Taliban and terrorists who don't believe in any religious or civil values."
On Wednesday, the United States Embassy, which warns American citizens against traveling to Afghanistan, said it had received reports that militants were planning to attack a hotel or guesthouse in the Shar-e Naw district of Kabul. It said it had no further information on "the timing, target, location, or method of any planned attacks."
After the bombing, the embassy said in a statement: "Murdering those who work to enlighten, educate and entertain will not stop Afghans from exercising their universal human right to freedom of expression. A vibrant media is one of the great successes of the Afghan people over the past 14 years."
After a suicide bomber attacked an upscale hotel [4] in Kabul last year, killing nine, including the Agence France-Presse journalist Sardar Ahmad and his wife and two of their children, the Taliban spokesman Mr. Mujahid apologized for the attack. [5] The statement called the killing a mistake. Afghan journalists had responded to that attack by boycotting news coverage of the Taliban for two weeks.
[2] https://twitter.com/ZabihullaM/status/689865676475994112
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/22/world/asia/gunmen-open-fire-at-a-luxury-hotel-in-afghanistan.html