An international human rights group has condemned a January 20 Taliban suicide attack that targeted employees of the Afghan news network Tolo TV, killing seven people.
Human Rights Watch said on January 21 that the attack on a minibus carrying Tolo TV employees was an “atrocity designed to undermine Afghanistan’s still-fragile media freedom.”
The suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden car into the minibus as it was passing near the Russia Embassy in Kabul.
Twenty-five people, many of them employees of Tolo TV’s Kaboora Production affiliate, were injured.
In a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, the Taliban declared Tolo TV a “spy agency.”
Tolo TV is an independent Afghan media organization that includes television, radio, and online news affiliates.
The Taliban declared the media organization a legitimate “military target” in late 2015.
With reporting by AP, Reuters, and AFP