Four women, including activist, killed in northern Afghanistan

KABUL: Four women have been killed in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Taliban government said on Saturday, as local sources identified at least one of the victims as a rights activist.

Two suspects have been arrested after the four bodies were found at a house in the city, interior ministry spokesman Qari Sayed Khosti said.

“The arrested people have admitted in initial interrogation that the women were invited to the house by them. Further investigations are under way and the case has been referred to court,” he said.

Khosti did not identify the victims, but sources in Mazar-i-Sharif said that one of the dead was a women’s rights activist and university lecturer, Frozan Safi.

Three sources in Mazar-i-Sharif said that they had heard the women received a call that they thought was an invitation to join an evacuation flight and were picked up by a car, only to be found dead later.

“I knew one of those women, Frozan Safi,” a female employee of an international organisation said, on condition of anonymity. “She was also a women’s activist, really well known in the city.”

The source said that three weeks ago she had herself received a call from someone pretending to offer assistance in her efforts to get to safety abroad.

“He knew all information about me, asked me to send my documents, wanted me to fill a questionnaire, pretending to be an official of my office in charge of giving info to the US for my evacuation,” she said.

After becoming suspicious she blocked the caller, and is now living in fear. She was shocked when she heard about the killings.

“I was already scared,” she said. “My mental health is not good nowadays. I am always afraid that someone might come to my door, take me somewhere and shoot me.”

The Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in August after a 20-year war against the former US-backed government, are a deeply conservative movement.

Under their last period of rule, women were banned from public life and since the group’s return to government many rights activists have fled the country.

Some women who remained have held street protests in Kabul demanding that their rights be respected and that girls be allowed to attend public high schools.

Taliban fighters have broken up some of the protests, and the government has threatened to arrest any journalists covering unauthorised gatherings.

But the movement’s leaders have insisted that their fighters are not authorised to kill activists, and have promised that any who do will be punished.

PAKISTAN TALIBAN’S DEMAND

Meanwhile, the Pakistani Taliban have demanded that the government of Pakistan release a number of prisoners as a condition for talks aimed at laying the ground for full ceasefire negotiations, multiple sources in the group said.

The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan or TTP and separate from the Afghan Taliban, have had two rounds of preliminary talks, facilitated by the Afghan Taliban, a commander based in the Afghan province of Kunar said.

Sources close to the matter said Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the Haqqani Network and the current Afghan Taliban interior minister, was helping the talks.

The TTP, which combines a number of militant groups that have been fighting the government of Pakistan since 2007, is included on the US State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organisations.

Last month Prime Minister Imran Khan told Turkey’s TRT television that his government was in talks with parts of the TTP as part of a “reconciliation process”.

The release of the prisoners is meant to be a confidence-building measure, three TTP commanders said, adding that the outcome of the talks was still uncertain.

“We aren’t too hopeful of the immediate results of the talks but our leaders had demanded the release of prisoners if they are sincere in meaningful negotiations,” a TTP commander told Reuters from Afghanistan’s Kunar province.

No comment was available from the Pakistani government. The interior ministry, foreign ministry and the ISPR, the armed forces communications wing, did not respond to emailed requests for comment. – AFP/Reuters