Tunisia’s biggest political party Ennahda named a candidate for presidential elections on Tuesday, the first time the moderate Islamist party has put up a nominee for the post since the country transitioned to democracy after the 2011 revolution.

Party vice president Abdel Fattah Mourou, 71, a lawyer, will run in elections due to be held two months early on Sept. 15 following the death of president Beji Caid Essebsi last month.

Liberal Prime Minister Youssef Chahed will also stand, his Tahaya Tounes party said last week, making him one of the likely frontrunners to succeed Essebsi.

Other candidates who have announced their intention to run include liberal former Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa and Moncef Marzouki, who served as interim president for three years after autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was toppled.

Essebsi was chosen in the first democratic presidential election in 2014.

One of Ennahda’s most moderate leaders, Mourou has long demanded reforms to the party to make it more open and to distance it from the Muslim Brotherhood in other Arab countries.

Critics say Mourou is two-faced, however, and holds contradictory positions on the role of the Islam in society.

“Mourou is a highly regarded figure in Tunisia, he is able to unite Tunisians and to find consensus between rivals. This is what Tunisia needs now,” Imed Khmiri, a senior Ennahda official, told Reuters.

Mourou is currently acting speaker of parliament after former speaker Mohamed Ennaceur became interim president.

Tunisia’s president mainly has authority over foreign and defense policy, governing alongside a prime minister chosen by parliament who has authority over domestic affairs.

…

The European Union says its door remains open should British Prime Minister Boris Johnson want to discuss his country’s departure from the bloc but it insists that the Brexit divorce agreement cannot be renegotiated.

EU Commission spokeswoman Annika Breidthardt said Tuesday that the Brexit agreement “is the best possible deal” that Britain is going to get.

Johnson says he will take Britain out of the EU on Oct. 31 with or without a deal, raising fears of a damaging no-deal exit.

He says the backstop arrangement to keep goods flowing smoothly between EU member Ireland and Northern Ireland in the U.K. would bind his country to European trade rules and must be dropped from the Brexit agreement.

Breidthardt says Brussels is available should Britain “wish to hold talks and clarify its position in more detail.”

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The scars from the nine bullets the gunman fired into Temel Atacocugu run down his left side like knotty rope. But it’s the recurring mental images from that day at the mosque that he often finds hardest to cope with: The gunman’s face. The puff of smoke from his gun. The worshippers falling as they clamored to escape.

After coming so close to dying nearly five months ago, Atacocugu feels he has been “reborn.” And this week he plans to express his gratitude to God for being given the chance for a new life when he participates in the hajj, the holy Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.

The 44-year-old kebab shop co-owner is among 200 survivors and victims’ relatives from the Christchurch mosque shootings who are traveling to Saudi Arabia as guests of King Salman. The king is paying for their airfare, accommodation and travel costs, a bill that will run well over $1 million. The group will also travel to holy sites in Medina.

Lives Forever Changed by Christchurch Shootings

On a small farm on the outskirts of Christchurch in New Zealand, Omar Nabi digs a small hole and sharpens a knife as he prepares to slaughter a sheep as a blessing to his father — a victim of the mass killings at the Al Noor mosque.

Hunched between his father’s collection of rusted cars, Nabi softly said a prayer and slit the animal’s neck, facing it towards Mecca. He removed the pelt and prepared the meat for cooking. Blood was pooled in a hole where he plans to plant a tree.

All able-bodied Muslims are required to perform the hajj once in their lifetime, with many saving for years to make the journey. The annual pilgrimage draws nearly 2 million Muslims from around the world to Mecca and sites around it to perform a series of ancient rites and prayers meant to cleanse the soul of past sins and bring people closer to God.

The Saudi ambassador to New Zealand, Abdulrahman Al Suhaibani, says King Salman was shocked by the March 15 attacks at two mosques in which an Australian white supremacist has been charged with killing 51 people.

The Christchurch shootings have been cited as inspiration by other white supremacists, most recently in an attack at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, that left at least 22 people dead.

Each year, the king invites several hundred people to perform the hajj as his own guests, often selecting those most touched by tragedy that year. Al Suhaibani said this is the first time the king has invited anyone from New Zealand on his annual program to help get people to the hajj who otherwise may struggle to make it.

Two weeks ago, the ambassador traveled to Christchurch to hand out the simple white garments the male pilgrims will wear. The terry cloth garments worn by men are meant to strip pilgrims down of adornment and symbolize equality of mankind before God.

“It’s a wonderful time and this is a golden chance for people to get spiritual elevation,” says Gamal Fouda, the imam at the Al Noor mosque, one of the two mosques that were attacked.

Fouda, who also survived the shootings, is travelling with the group as a spiritual leader. He says that while all Muslims want to do the hajj, many tend to delay their trips due to the expense, especially from distant New Zealand.

Fouda says the memories of the shooting remain fresh in everybody’s minds and his mosque hasn’t yet returned to normal.

“The most important thing is that the New Zealand community, including Muslims, they stood together against hate,” Fouda says. “And we are still saying that hate is not going to divide us. We will continue to love each other.”

New Zealand Announces Assault Weapons Ban in Wake of Christchurch Mass Shootings

Nearly one week after 50 Muslim worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand were gunned down, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern imposed an immediate ban on all military-style semi-automatic and automatic assault rifles.

The ban, which Prime Minister Ardern announced Thursday in Wellington, includes high-capacity magazines, which can hold multiple rounds of ammunition, and accessories that can convert ordinary rifles into fast-acting assault rifles.

Atacocugu says he was feeling good on March 15 when he entered the Al Noor mosque for Friday prayers after finishing a final session with an acupuncturist, who was treating him for a sports injury.

When he saw the gunman walk into the mosque, he thought at first he was a police officer because of his paramilitary clothing. Then the man started shooting and Atacocugu found himself looking right at him as he fired a bullet into Atacocugu’s mouth, shattering his jaw.

“And then I said, ‘Oh my God, I am dying.’ When I see he’s shooting, when I see the smoke, I said, ‘Yeah, I’m dying.’ That’s the first thought,” Atacocugu says.

After falling to the floor, his left arm ended up protecting his vital organs as the gunman continued firing bullets into him.

Recovering at the Christchurch Hospital after the shooting, Atacocugu couldn’t eat for a week and couldn’t walk for three weeks. But after several surgeries, he’s now able to walk unassisted and get some use from his left hand. He has more surgeries ahead and is being helped in Saudi Arabia by his 21-year-old nephew, who is traveling with him.

Another of those traveling to the hajj is 33-year-old Aya Al-Umari, whose brother Hussein, 35, was among those killed at the Al Noor mosque.

“We had a very typical sibling relationship,” she says. “So you have your nagging elder brother, nagging little sister. But at the end of the day you love each other, even though you don’t verbally say it. But you just telepathically know that.”

She says witnesses and video taken by the gunman indicate her brother stood up to the attacker, allowing others to escape.

“So he fought to the very last minute,” she says. “And this is Hussein, in his nature. He’s always the type of person who would want to see if there is danger, he’d face it, he wouldn’t escape from it.”

When visiting Mecca, Al-Umari says, she’ll pray for her parents and herself to have the patience to cope with the loss of Hussein. She also plans to pray for the other families from her mosque who lost loved ones. And she says she feels her brother will be with her in Saudi Arabia.

“I will carry his presence with me the whole time when I’m in Mecca,” Al-Umari says. “He is with us every day. But in the journey, I will feel like he will accompany me.”

Al-Umari says she wants to return to the hajj another year.

“I will do my level best to make sure I fulfill my duty first, and then I will do it on his behalf next time,” she says.

The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. During the five-day pilgrimage, Muslims circle Islam’s most sacred site, the cube-shaped Kaaba, and take part in rituals intended to bring about greater humility and unity.

Fouda, the imam, says that while he has been to Mecca before, he has never been there during the hajj, so it will be a special journey for him as well.

“I will pray for God to forgive my sins, because every human is sinful,” he says.

“And I will also pray for the peace of the world. Peace for the people of Christchurch. Peace for the people of New Zealand. And peace for the whole world,” he says. “We ask God that we find a better world than we live in, rather than spreading hate.”

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Pakistan began a special joint session of its parliament Tuesday to discuss a possible response a day after rival India revoked the special status for Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan region both the countries claim in its entirety.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan plans to address the lawmakers to explain his government’s future plan of action.

India added a special provision to its constitution in 1949 providing autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir, allowing the region to have its own constitution, a separate flag and independence over all matters except foreign affairs, defense and communications.  India’s Hindu nationalist-led government scrapped the constitutional provision on Monday.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has long campaigned for ending the special status granted to Kashmir, saying it hampered development and encouraged youth there to join insurgents fighting Indian rule.

Pakistan swiftly condemned and rejected Monday’s announcements by India as “illegal steps.”

“No unilateral step by the government of India can change this disputed status, as enshrined in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions. Nor will this ever be acceptable to the people of Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The country’s top military commanders held a special meeting Tuesday to review the security situation in the wake of India’s controversial move.

Following its special meeting Tuesday the Pakistani army said in a statement that Islamabad had never recognized the provisions New Delhi revoked because they were part of what the statement said was India’s “sham” efforts to legalize its “occupation” of Kashmir.

“[The] Pakistan army firmly stands by the Kashmiris in their just struggle to the very end. We are prepared and shall go to any extent to fulfill our obligations in this regard,” the statement quoted the army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, as saying.

Anti-India protests also erupted Tuesday in cities across the Islamabad-administered one-third of Kashmir and in several major Pakistani cities.

American envoy arrives in Pakistan

Meanwhile, a senior American diplomat arrived in Islamabad Tuesday for pre-scheduled bilateral meetings.  Pakistani officials said the latest developments in Kashmir were likely to figure high in the talks with Alice Wells, the U.S. principal deputy assistant secretary of state in charge of South and Central Asian affairs.

Ahead of Monday’s announcements, the Indian government deployed tens of thousands of additional troops in Kashmir, arrested local political leaders, including former chief ministers, imposed a security lockdown and cut off all telecommunications as well as cable television networks to deter agitation.

In its immediate reaction on Monday, the United States said it was “closely” following developments in Kashmir.  U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Monday urged India and Pakistan to “exercise restraint” following India’s announcement.

“We are concerned about reports of detentions and urge respect for individual rights and discussion with those in affected communities, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.  She called on “all parties to maintain peace and stability along the Line of Control [the de facto Kashmir border].”

India’s move could fuel separatist violence

Critics warn the move will likely exacerbate ongoing bloody rebellion in Kashmir and deteriorate military tensions between India and Pakistan, both armed with nuclear weapons, who have already fought two wars over the divided region.

The Muslim insurgency and the ensuing Indian security crackdown are estimated to have killed 70,000 people in Kashmir over the past three decades. New Delhi has consistently accused Islamabad, particularly the country’s powerful military, of being behind the militancy.

Pakistan rejects the charges and maintains it only provides diplomatic and moral support to the separatists. End.

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Aid groups have slammed the Saudi-led coalition for its closure of the airport in Yemen’s capital, saying it’s prevented thousands of sick civilians from traveling abroad for urgent medical treatment.

The Norwegian Refugee Council and CARE say the Sanaa airport’s three-year closure has amounted to a “death sentence” for many sick Yemenis.

They appealed late Monday on Yemen’s warring parties to come to an agreement to reopen the airport for commercial flights to “alleviate humanitarian suffering caused by the closure.”

The Saudi-led coalition, backing Yemen’s internationally recognized government, has been at war with the rebels, known as Houthis, since 2015, and has imposed a blockade on ports that supply Houthi-controlled areas.
 
Mohammed Abdi, the NRC’s director in Yemen, says there’s “no justification” for standing in the way of life-saving treatment.

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China has issued a dire warning to demonstrators who have brought Hong Kong to a standstill after more than two months of heated protests.

Yang Guang, the spokesman for the Chinese government’s Hong Kong and Macao affairs office, told reporters during a briefing in Beijing Tuesday it is “only a matter of time” before the leaders of the massive protests face punishment.  

Several weeks of massive street demonstrations have pushed the Asian financial hub into its worst political crisis since Britain handed over control to China in 1997. 

The demonstrations began in June with angry residents protesting against an extradition bill that would have allowed people to be sent to mainland China for trial. The bill has since been suspended, but the demonstrations have continued and have since evolved into calls for greater democracy.

Yang said a small group of criminals have pushed Hong Kong into “a dangerous abyss,” and warned the group not to “misjudge the situation and mistake our restraint for weakness.”  He also warned that “those who play with fire will perish by it.”

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The Greek Orthodox Church says it has filed a new lawsuit against a Jewish settler group in a bid to overturn an Israeli Supreme Court decision upholding the sale of three properties in predominantly Palestinian parts of Jerusalem’s Old City.

The Patriarchate claimed in a statement Monday that it had “clear proof” of corruption in the long-disputed 2004 sale of Old City properties, including two Palestinian-run hotels.

In June, the court ruled in favor of the Israeli organization, which seeks to increase the Jewish presence in Palestinian areas of the contested holy city.

Most Orthodox Christians in Jerusalem are Palestinian, and the sale of the properties to Israelis sparked outrage.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and Palestinians seek it as capital of a future state.

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The United States might seem more divided than ever, but that could be because Americans have a distorted impression of people with opposing political views.

“Democrats and Republicans overestimate the proportion of people on the other side of the political aisle who hold extreme views by a factor of about two,” says Daniel Yudkin, associate director of research at More in Common.

“So, another way of saying that is that there are about half as many people with extreme views on the other side than Democrats and Republicans think.” 

For example, 87% of Republicans say “properly controlled immigration can be good for America.” But Democrats believe only about half of Republicans would agree with that statement.

And while Republicans think almost half of Democrats believe “most police are bad people,” the reality is that far fewer Democrats, 15%, agree with that supposition.

A recent More in Common report finds that this perception gap is created by extremists in both parties who tend to have the loudest voices, in part because they are extremely active on social and traditional media.

“So, when people are learning and hearing the voices of the people they think are on the other side, they’re actually hearing the voices of the most extreme contingent of those groups,” says Yudkin, a co-author of the report.

“And so, they come to believe that those voices are representative of the people on both sides, when in fact, there’s quite a lot of complexity and nuance that gets missed.”

These false assumptions are detrimental to Americans because the greater the misperceptions, the more people begin to view people on the other side as hateful, brainwashed or ignorant. That negativity makes it difficult for Americans with opposing political views to cooperate on the issues where they do see eye to eye.

“There are a lot of issues that Americans actually agree about,” Yudkin says.

“We agree that we should have a properly controlled immigration system that’s compassionate but also efficient. We agree that racism remains an issue in America right now. Most of Americans believe there’s rampant inequality and that there should be higher taxes on the wealthy, for example. But these shared issues are undermined in the political process when sides come to see the other as the enemy.”

People tend to consume news that reinforces and confirms their biases about people in opposing constituencies, according to the report, which also finds that when conservatives and liberals consume news that runs counter to their own views, they make fewer false or exaggerated assumptions about the other side.

The bottom line is that Americans are less divided than they believe, according to Yudkin, and reducing the perception gap starts with understanding the reality of just how big — or small — that gap actually is.

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China’s decision last week to stop issuing permits for independent tourists to Taiwan applies new economic pressure to their already strained relations, and analysts see three underlying reasons behind Beijing’s move.  

Beijing’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism cited the “current mainland China-Taiwan relations” as cause to stop permitting indie travelers after about a decade. China regards self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory rather than a state, but Taiwan prefers at least today’s level autonomy over the Chinese goal of unification. That schism has caused the two sides to chafe for 70 years.

Here are three reasons China cut off travel permits:

Taiwan’s president opposes China despite earlier pressure to get along

Suspending the travel permits lets China remind Taiwan of its economic clout, some analysts say.

The permit shutdown ends a process that generated on average more than 82,000 arrivals per month last year, which boosted the island’s service economy.

Since 2016, China has flown military aircraft near Taiwan and persuaded five Taiwanese diplomatic allies to switch their allegiance from Taipei to Beijing. The Communist leadership hopes to pressure Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s government to bargain with China as her predecessor did — on the condition that acknowledges both sides are considered part of the same country.

Despite the military and diplomatic pressure, the government in Taipei openly opposes rule by China. Tsai in January condemned the “one country, two systems” idea that Chinese President Xi Jinping had proposed then as a way to rule Taiwan.

China is “more than furious” that Tsai openly backs anti-Beijing protesters who have taken to the streets in Hong Kong since June, said Sean King, vice president of the Park Strategies political consultancy in New York.

China upped its warnings by calling off Taiwan-bound independent travel, said Liang Kuo-yuan, president of the Taipei research organization Polaris Research Institute.

“The headline news will create some psychological effects,” Liang said. “I believe their motivation should be that mainland China wants to say ‘as well as using military threats we can also hold you back economically.’”

Taiwan’s president faces a tough reelection bid in 2020

China hopes the tourism suspension will remind Taiwanese that “there are riches to be had” if they reject Tsai’s reelection bid in January, King said.

Tsai is running against Han Kuo-yu, a mayor who supports opening talks with China to bolster economic and investment ties. His party, when in power from 2008 to 2016, accepted Beijing’s condition that each side see itself as part of China for negotiation purposes. The two governments inked 23 deals.

Tsai rejects the one-China condition, and China cut off talks after she took office.

China hopes the cut in travel permits will addle the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, said Yun Sun, East Asia Program senior associate at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington.

Hotels near tourist hotspots will take the biggest hit from the loss of self-guided tourists, though many had expected business to taper due to the decline in political relations, said Peter Lin, chief executive officer of the Topology Travel Agency in Taipei. Losses from the travel suspension are estimated at about $1 billion per year.

“The Chinese do want to show that DPP [Democratic Progressive Party] is not doing good things and want to punish the DPP,” Sun said. “They want to squeeze the election, and tourism is a very convenient channel. The tourism industry in Taiwan will be hit pretty hard.”

Chinese tourists would get close to Taiwan’s political heat

China’s official television network said on its Weibo social media website Wednesday that independent travel permits had been suspended because of increasing “risks” for travelers before the election.

Beijing frets about its tourists being drawn to Taiwan’s democratic institutions including its unfettered mass media, King said. Relations with China are shaping up as a core presidential campaign issue with daily media coverage.

“There’s the incidental bonus for Beijing of having fewer of its citizens exposed to the island’s vigorously open political culture,” King said. “This fact cannot be overlooked, especially given the protests in Hong Kong, uncensored coverage of which mainland visitors get to see on their Taiwan hotel television screens.”  

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Colombia will grant citizenship to at least 24,000 children born to Venezuelan parents and at risk of statelessness.

President Ivan Duque announced Monday that in a gesture of solidarity his government will begin recognizing those born in Colombia as citizens.

Colombian law does not offer birthright citizenship to children whose parents are not legal migrants. Many of the 1.4 million Venezuelans now in Colombia entered illegally, meaning their children born in the neighboring Andean country didn’t qualify.

Children born to Venezuelan parents abroad are entitled to Venezuelan citizenship but many have been unable to access that right because of severed diplomatic ties with Colombia.

Colombia has received more Venezuelan migrants than any other nation form an unprecedented exodus.
 
The new measure is expected to remain in place for two years.

…

Downcast and sitting in a wheelchair as his historic trial began Monday in Argentina, the Rev. Nicola Corradi didn’t look like the man former students at an institute for the deaf say was the force behind years of “indescribable” torment through alleged sexual abuse.

The 83-year-old Italian priest, along with the Rev. Horacio Corbacho, 59, and Armando Gomez, 63, are being tried for 28 cases of alleged abuse against ex-students at the Antonio Provolo Institute for Deaf and Hearing Impaired Children in Mendoza province. They face prison sentences of up to 20 years in some cases, up to 50 years in others.

The alleged abuse took place between 2004 and 2016, and the case gained world attention when it emerged that Corradi had faced similar accusations at the Antonio Provolo institute in Verona, Italy, and Pope Francis had been notified the Italian priest was running a similar center in Argentina.

Corradi has pleaded not guilty to the sexual abuse charges, while Corbacho and Gomez — both Argentines — have not entered pleas. The trial is expected to last more than a month.

As the three accused — Corbacho and Gomez in handcuffs — were led down a long corridor in Mendoza’s Palace of Justice Monday to a court where three judges awaited them, alleged victims and their relatives protested outside, with one sign saying “With Our Hands And Our Voices We Break The Silence,” a reference to sign language.

“I am super-nervous, anxious and I hope for justice; that this ends soon so my son can move on to a new stage because this is very hard,” said Natalia Villalonga, whose 18-year-old son Ezequiel is one of about 20 ex-students at the Provolo institute who say they were abused.

The AP doesn’t name alleged sexual assault victims unless they make their identities public, which Ezequiel Villalonga did in an interview on the eve of the trial in the headquarters of the human rights group Xumek, which is the plaintiff in the trial.

“Those of us from the Provolo in Mendoza say: `no more fear. We have the power,”’ he said.

The first day’s hearing lasted about two hours during which the charges against the men were read. They included rape, sexual touching and corrupting minors since the children were allegedly sometimes forced to watch pornography or perform sex acts among themselves.

It is the first in a series of trials involving other former members of the now-closed school. Others implicated include two nuns who allegedly participated or knew about the abuses, as well as former directors and employees who are accused of knowing about the abuse but taking no action.

Jorge Bordon, an institute employee, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2018 in the case for rape, sexual touching and corrupting minors.

The Vatican has not commented publicly on the trial. The Holy See would be loath to be seen as interfering in a criminal trial, and typically defers all comment, as well as the outcome of its own investigations, until after all investigations by civil law enforcement are completed.

In 2017, it sent two Argentine priests to investigate what happened in Mendoza. Dante Simon, a judicial vicar, told the AP that the acts denounced are “horrible” and “more than plausible.” He said the pontiff expressed his sadness and told him that “he was very worried about this situation and it would be a labor.”

In a report submitted to the Vatican in June of that year, Simon requested the application of the maximum penalty to Corradi and Corbacho, that they be made to “resign directly by the Holy Father.” The report must be reviewed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The case touches close to the Vatican, which is accused of having disregarded the warnings of the alleged Italian victims of Corradi, when just months earlier the pope had promulgated new rules to combat abuse in the church.

Corradi was singled out for similar abuses committed since the 1950s at the Provolo institute in Verona. His name appeared in a letter addressed to the pope in 2014 in which the Italian accusers mentioned several allegedly abusive priests who continued to exercise the ministry and said that Corradi and three other priests were in Argentina.

The Verona diocese sanctioned four of the 24 defendants, but not Corradi. There was no criminal case because of the elapsed time.

Anne Barret Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, told the AP that she does not expect a response from the Vatican and the pope.

Doyle said that when the crimes at the Verona school made world headlines in 2009 and 2010, “the pope was president of the Argentine bishops’ conference. He could have ordered an investigation of the Mendoza and La Plata schools then.”

“And certainly, as pope, he could have acted years ago. He was notified by the Verona victims of Corradi’s presence in Argentina.”

Erica, the sister of a plaintiff who asked that her full name not be used, said the trial “gives me a lot of strength, because it could have never happened” because of the vulnerability of the children, who are poor and deaf or hard of hearing.

“I want to tell her that her word, which has been blocked by many social things, has a lot of value today. So much value that it could bring to justice people who were doing disastrous things for a long time,” she said.

…

VOA’s Ibrahim Rahimi contributed to this report from Paktia, Afghanistan.

A mini-bus carrying the employees of a private television station in Afghanistan has been struck by a magnetic bomb pasted to the vehicle, killing two people and injuring three others, all civilians, Afghan officials said Sunday.

Nasrat Rahimi, a spokesperson for the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs said Sunday that a bomb was placed inside the vehicle carrying the employees of Khorshid TV, a privately-owned TV station that is headquartered in the capital, Kabul.

According to officials, two people have been killed in the attack including the driver of the vehicle and a civilian passing by. Three others were wounded, two are employees of Khorshid TV and the third person is a civilian who was near the vehicle.

No group has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but this is not the first time that journalists have been targeted in the country by militant groups.

Incident follows reporter’s killing

Last month, unknown armed assailants killed a reporter for a local radio station in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktia province.

Nader Shah Sahibzada, a reporter for Voice of Gardiz local radio, went missing in July and authorities found his body a day later near his home in the capital city, Gardiz.

Initial autopsy reports suggest that Sahibzada had been severely tortured and stabbed to death.

No group claimed responsibility for Sahibzada’s killing, but in June the Taliban warned Afghan media outlets that if they do not stop what the militant group called “anti-Taliban statements”, they would be targeted.

“Those who continue doing so will be recognized by the group as military targets who are helping the Western-backed government of Afghanistan,” the insurgent group said in a statement.

“Reporters and staff members will not remain safe,” the statement added.

Violence a dead-end street

Both the U.S. and Afghanistan condemned Taliban’s threats against the Afghan media outlets.

“Freedom of expression and attacks on media organizations is in contradiction to human and Islamic values,” Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s office said in a statement.

John Bass, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said in a tweet that the Taliban should stop threatening Afghan journalists.

“More violence, against journalists or civilians, will not bring security and opportunity to Afghanistan, nor will it help the Taliban reach their political objectives,” Bass said.

Sunday’s attack is not an isolated incident.  According to media advocacy groups in Afghanistan, so far this year seven local journalists have been killed by militants excluding Sunday’s attack.

Deadliest place for journalists

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which advocates for freedom of the press around the world, reported that Afghanistan was the world’s deadliest country for journalists in 2018 followed by Syria.

The group said in its annual report in late December that 15 journalists have been killed in Afghanistan and 11 others have been killed in Syria, making both countries the deadliest places for journalists around the world.

The increased fatalities among journalists in Afghanistan is due in part to bombings and shootings that targeted media workers.

In April of 2018, a double bombing in Kabul killed nine journalists, including six Radio Free Europe reporters.

The Islamic State (IS) terror group claimed responsibility for those attacks, which they said deliberately targeted journalists.

Some materials used in this report came from Reuters.

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