Alghadeer TV Alghadeer TV
Taliban have abducted at least six Afghan journalists working for private and government media organizations in eastern Afghanistan, government officials and the militant group said.
Local Afghan officials said on Saturday that the reporters were abducted the previous day while they were traveling together from neighboring Paktika province to Paktia to attend a media workshop.
“We are trying to negotiate their release with the Taliban,” media outlets quoted Abdullah Hasrat, a spokesman for Paktia’s governor, as saying.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the six journalists were “mistakenly” kidnapped by their militant group, adding that they will be released soon.
“Yes, our mujahideen (fighters) have mistakenly kidnapped them,” media outlets quoted Mujahid as saying.
“Right now mobile services are not working, but they will be released as soon as we establish contact with the local commander,” he said.
The journalists were reportedly working for radio and TV news companies that broadcast news in the Pashto and Dari languages.
Last month, a magnetic explosive device attached to a bus carrying media workers in the Afghan capital, Kabul, killed at least two people and injured four others.
In June, the Taliban, which controls vast part of the country, said local Afghan media would be targeted if they continued covering anti-Taliban announcements made by the Kabul government.
Afghanistan was the deadliest country in the world to be a journalist in 2018. While the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported 13 deaths, the International Federation of Journalists said 16 journalists were killed last year.
There has been no let-up in violence in the nearly 18-year war in Afghanistan, even though the US and the Taliban are said to be in an intense final phase of efforts toward a peace deal to end the conflict.
