From Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
Gunmen targeted a prominent female Afghan political figure in what appears to be a failed assassination attempt, AFP reported 12 July. "I was on my way back from Khogiani district to Jalabad city when we saw two armed men on the highway waiting for our convoy," female activist Safia Sediqi, the women’s representative for eastern Nangarhar Province, told the news agency. "But as soon as they realized we had more than a dozen bodyguards they tried to escape." Sediqi said her guards pursued the attackers. One got away, and the other committed suicide to avoid capture, she said. Sediqi said the suicide victim "swallowed his identity card and destroyed documents he had on him, then he blew himself with one of the hand grenades he was carrying." Sediqi had traveled to eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province to investigate rural problems and visited the Khogiani district some 90 kilometers east of Kabul. Suspected neo-Taliban insurgents in the area have killed four female election workers in recent weeks. |