Taliban Suicide Bomber Strikes Packed Bus in Kabul

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban served notice in October that they would begin targeting the two largest Afghan television networks for attack, accusing them of having falsely reported that insurgents had raped female students during their capture of the northern city of Kunduz.

A Taliban statement at the time said that the reports were a “clear, shameless example of propaganda by these satanic networks” and that the insurgency would treat the outlets “as military objectives because of their disrespectful and hostile actions toward the Afghan mujahid nation.”

On Wednesday, the insurgents made good on their threats, when aTaliban suicide bomber drove a car loaded with explosives into a minibus carrying employees of a production company working for the country’s largest television network, Tolo TV.

The explosion was powerful enough to rattle windows miles away. Television footage showed police officers and ambulances at the scene, as emergency workers rushed to evacuate the wounded.

The attack, at the height of the evening rush hour in the capital, left six employees of the production company dead, the police said, as well as a seventh person who could not immediately be identified. At least 25 others were wounded.

The employees killed on Wednesday worked for Kaboora Production, a unit of Moby Group, the media company that owns the Tolo network. Moby, whose backers include Rupert Murdoch, is controlled by the family of its chairman and chief executive, Saad Mohseni.

Moby Group’s three television channels interrupted their regular programming on Wednesday evening to broadcast verses of the Quran, with a ticker at the bottom of the screen announcing the death of the Kaboora employees.

“We salute you on your martyrdom, our colleagues,” an anchor said as the news broadcast went live again. “They martyred you to silence our voice, but they will never achieve their evil goals.” - Read More at the NYT

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