Two journalists shot in Afghanistan

A female foreign journalist has been shot dead and another injured by a gunman in eastern Afghanistan on the eve of the country’s presidential vote.

“Two female journalists were shot this morning inside a district police headquarters, one has been killed, while the other is seriously wounded,” Khost provincial spokesman Mobarez Mohammad Zadran said on Friday.

The gunman is said to have been in police uniform.

The woman is the second Western journalist killed in Afghanistan during the election campaign. On March 11, Swedish journalist Nils Horner was shot dead in the capital, Kabul.

Horner, 51, a veteran of the Swedish national radio, lost his life while researching a story about a January assault on a Kabul restaurant in which 21 people, including 13 foreigners, were killed.

Kabul has been the scene of a string of high-profile assaults in the run-up to Saturday’s polls, which will elect a successor to President Hamid Karzai.

On March 29, Taliban militants attacked the headquarters of the Afghan election commission in the capital Kabul, a day after a deadly assault on a guesthouse frequented by foreigners in an upscale neighborhood of the city.

Most recently, a bomber wearing a military uniform detonated his explosives at the crowded entrance of the Interior Ministry compound, killing at least six police officers and injuring several others on April 2.

Security is tight across Afghanistan ahead of the vote and over 400,000 personnel including police, army and intelligence services have been sent to provide security around the country, according to Interior Minister Omar Daudzai.

The Taliban have said they would disrupt the vote by attacking the polling staff, voters and security forces.

Violence in Afghanistan has been on the rise in recent years despite the prolonged presence of foreign forces in the war-torn country since the US-led invasion in 2001.