KABUL, Afghanistan: A female member of Afghanistan’s peace negotiating team and a former parliamentarian survived an assassination attempt, Afghan officials said Saturday.
Tariq Arian, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said that Fawzia Koofi was attacked late Friday afternoon near the capital of Kabul returning from a visit to the northern province of Parwan.
Koofi is part of a 21 member team charged with representing the Afghan government in upcoming peace talks with the Taliban, following a US deal with the militants that was struck in February.
The head of the Afghan peace delegation, Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, tweeted that Koofi had survived the attack and was “in good health.”
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Both Taliban and Islamic State affiliates continue to carry out attacks against Afghan government figures.
Koofi is also a women’s rights activist who has been a vocal Taliban critic.
She and her sister Maryam Koofi stopped at a market in the Qarabagh district when gunmen attacked them.
Arian said police were launching an investigation. No further details of the assault were available, he added.
The US peace deal aims to recruit the Taliban to fight Daesh militants in Afghanistan, a mutual enemy. The Taliban and IS are staunch rivals.
The peace deal also paved the way for US and NATO forces to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan and for the Taliban and Afghan government to begin direct talks.
The Afghan government said on Friday that it had released the first 80 of a final 400 Taliban prisoners ahead of direct negotiations between the two sides.
Prisoner releases on both sides are part of the agreement signed in February between the US and the Taliban. It calls for the release of 5,000 Taliban held by the government and 1,000 government and military personnel held by the insurgent group as a good will gesture ahead of intra-Afghan negotiations.
Talks are expected to be held in Qatar where the Taliban maintain a political office. Several Afghan leaders told The Associated Press talks could begin by Aug. 20.
Woman member of Afghan peace team survives attack by gunmen
Woman member of Afghan peace team survives attack by gunmen
- Tariq Arian, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said that Fawzia Koofi was attacked late Friday afternoon near the capital of Kabul
- The head of the Afghan peace delegation, Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, tweeted that Koofi had survived the attack and was “in good health“
Four killed in Ukraine as Moscow and Kyiv exchange drone strikes
- Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in Kharkiv
- Synegubov said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district
KHARKIV, Ukraine: Russian and Ukrainian drone strikes killed at least four people Wednesday, officials said, as the war between the neighbors dragged on for more than four years with no diplomatic breakthrough in sight.
The latest attacks came with a third round of three-party talks derailed by the war in the Middle East, despite pressure from Washington on both sides to agree to an elusive peace deal.
Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which lies close to the Russian border, was encircled at the beginning of Russia’s invasion four years ago.
It has been attacked almost daily since Moscow’s forces were pushed back later in 2022.
The governor of the wider region, Oleg Synegubov, said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district.
“A civilian enterprise caught fire as a result of the enemy strike,” he said, adding that three women and four men had been hospitalized.
Another Russian drone wounded 20 people in the afternoon, after hitting a civilian minibus in the southeastern city of Kherson, Ukrainian prosecutors said.
In the Russian-occupied part of the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow-installed authorities said two civilians had been killed in their car by a Ukrainian drone strike on the frontline town of Vasylivka.
“The danger of repeated strikes remains,” Kremlin-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky said.
