TALIBAN KILL AFGHAN GOVT’S MEDIA HEAD, SAY HE WAS ‘PUNISHED FOR HIS DEEDS’

US Charge d’Affaires to Afghanistan Ross Wilson has expressed his condolences over the death of the Afghanistan government’s media head on Friday. Dawa Khan Menapal, who headed the Media and Information Centre of the Afghanistan government, was assassinated on Friday, local media reports said. The Taliban have claimed responsibility for his death.

Dawa Khan had served as head of the Afghan government’s media wing in Kandahar in 2015 and worked as deputy presidential spokesman between 2016 and 2020.

Taking to Twitter, Wilson wrote, “We are saddened & disgusted by the Taliban’s targeted killing of Dawa Khan Meenapal, a friend and colleague, whose career was focused on providing truthful information to all Afghans about Afghanistan. These murders are an affront to Afghans’ human rights & freedom of speech.”

Meanwhile, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told The Associated Press that the groups’ fighters had killed Menapal. In a statement Mujahid put out later, he said Menapal “was killed in a special attack of Mujahideen” and was “punished for his deeds”.

The interior ministry spokesman Mirwais Stanikzai on Friday said: “Unfortunately, the savage terrorists have committed a cowardly act once again and martyred a patriotic Afghan.”

Fighting in Afghanistan’s long-running conflict has intensified since May, when foreign forces began the final stage of a withdrawal due to be completed later this month.

The Taliban already control large portions of the countryside, and are now challenging Afghan government forces in several large cities.

WITH AGENCY INPUTS