A magnetic IED blast targeted a bus carrying the employees of Khurshid TV, a private media outlet, in the fifth street of Taimani in Kabul’s police district 4 (PD4) at around 5:30 pm on Sunday evening.
Two people, including a passerby and driver of the bus, were killed and four others, including three employees of a Khurshid TV network, were wounded in the explosion, the Interior Ministry’s spokesman Nusrat Rahimi said.
The explosion happened at a rush hour as government employees are heading to their homes.
Kabul has witnessed heavy blasts in the past two months.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Taliban late in June threatened all Afghan TV channels, radio stations and other media outlets to avoid airing and publishing advertisements which the resurgent group believes are a “propaganda against their fighters”.
Attacks on Media Outlets in Afghanistan
In January 2016, a Taliban suicide bomber rammed his car into a bus carrying employees of Tolo TV, Afghanistan’s most popular private broadcaster, killing seven journalists.
The Taliban had said it bombed the bus because it claimed Tolo was producing propaganda for the US military and its allies.
Journalists in Afghanistan have been threatened or attacked not only by the Taliban but also by fighters from Daesh, government officials and powerful local figures unhappy with news coverage.
The press freedom index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on April 17 shows that the situation of media in Afghanistan has “worsened” as it has descended to 121 from 118 where it stood last year.
The organization has mentioned insecurity as one of the main reasons for an increase in violence against journalists in Afghanistan.
According to RSF, three journalists have been killed in Afghanistan this year.
The RSF says that for Afghanistan’s journalists, 2018 was the deadliest year since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.
A total of 15 journalists and media workers were killed in a series of bombings that began early in the year, nine of them in a single day, the RSF says in a report on its website.
Government statistics show that there are 96 TV channels, 65 radio stations and 911 print media in Kabul, as well as 107 TV channels, 284 radio stations and 416 print media in other provinces.
