Iran urges probe into assassination bid on journalist in Kabul

By Syed Zafar Mehdi

TEHRAN, Iran (AA) – Iran has condemned an assassination bid on its state TV scribe in Afghanistan and called for a thorough probe into the incident.

Iran’s foreign ministry through its diplomatic mission in Kabul on Saturday sent a note to the Taliban's foreign ministry, demanding that the attack on Alireza Sharifi be investigated and the perpetrators identified.

No group has so far come forward to claim responsibility for the attack, which again underlines myriad security challenges facing media persons in the country.

Sharifi, an Afghan national who works as a cameraman for Iran's state broadcaster IRIB in Afghanistan, was attacked by two motorcycle-borne assailants late Friday before they fled the scene.

The attack took place in central Kabul when he was travelling in his personal car with his wife and child, Anadolu Agency learnt.

The unidentified attackers fired seven bullets at his car, one of which pierced his face, leaving him badly wounded.

Iran's state TV in a statement on Saturday said the senior Taliban leadership has taken note of the incident and said they are "seriously pursuing it."

The attack came barely two days after Tehran hosted a multilateral meeting on Afghanistan with participation of top diplomats from neighboring countries.

It's not the first time a journalist affiliated with Iran's state media has become a casualty of the protracted war in Afghanistan.

In June 2017, Habibullah Hussain Zadeh, a photojournalist and video editor with Iran's Press TV, was killed in a massive truck bombing in central Kabul's diplomatic enclave, which killed 150 people.

The worst incident, however, took place in August 1998 when a journalist working for Iran's state news agency IRNA was among nine people killed at the Iranian consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar e Sharif.

The deadly attack, blamed on the Taliban, also killed eight Iranian diplomats.