- Friday, May 03, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
IN another example of their brutality, the Taliban on Friday (6) shot dead Dawa Khan Menapal, the chief of the Afghanistan government’s media information centre at a mosque in the capital Kabul, days after warning that they would target senior administrative officials in retaliation for a rise in air strikes.
The US has continued with its heavy air strikes on Afghanistan amid exiting from the country where it has remained stuck for two decades now.
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The Afghanistan government condemned the Taliban over its act. Interior ministry spokesperson Mirwais Stanikzai said, “Unfortunately, the savage terrorists have committed a cowardly act once again and martyred a patriotic Afghan.”
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The Taliban claimed responsibility for the death with spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid sending a message to the media saying “he was killed in a special attack carried out by mujahideen”.
An Indian photojournalist was recently killed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, while trying to cover conflicts between the Afghan forces and Taliban and while the extremist group said it was not responsible for his death, a US right-wing magazine claimed a few days ago that the Taliban brutally killed the Indian photojournalist and mutilated his body.
Fighting in Afghanistan intensified in May when the foreign forces kicked off their final stage of withdrawal and it will be over by August 31.
The pull-out has seen the Taliban regain control of large portions and are now challenging the Afghan government forces in a number of big cities in the country.
On Tuesday (3), the bomb-and-gun attack on Afghanistan defence minister Bismillah Mohammadi saw the war reaching Kabul for the first time in months.
On Wednesday (4), the Taliban said the raid in Kabul was a retaliation against the air strikes that the US and Afghan forces have conducted.
