Critic of warlords murdered in Afghanistan

Zaki owned and worked as a news presenter for Peace Radio, which broadcasts music, children’s stories, women’s rights information and pro-occupation news to Kabul and several neighbouring provinces. She was killed in the province of Parwan, not far from the huge US airbase at Bagram, by assassins who broke into her home late at night.

The provincial governor has blamed the killing on a member of Hezb-e-Islami, an organisation which, along with a resurgent Taliban, is fighting against the US occupation and the Afghan government.

However, Rahimullah Samander, the head of Afghanistan’s Independent Journalists Association, suggested to Reporters Without Borders that Zaki may have been killed by a regional warlord of whom she had been critical. He did not name the person.

“She [Zaki] has been threatened because of some of her programs,” he said. “And the people who issued the threats said that some reports were critical of one of the region’s figures. They said the programs were a plot against that person. Regional commanders are influential in the province and they have created problems for her several times in the past.”

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