Afghan female provincial lawmaker badly wounded in assassination attempt

Afghan woman lawmaker badly wounded in shooting

KABUL — Gunmen seriously wounded an Afghan provincial councilwoman in a drive-by shooting early Monday in the country’s increasingly violent north.

Nida Khyani was struck by two bullets, including one that left a potentially life-threatening abdominal wound, said Salim Rasouli, head of the provincial health department.

Khyani’s bodyguard was also slightly injured in the attack in Pul-e Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province just north of Kabul. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting, although suspicion immediately fell on Taliban insurgents who have long sought to kill those working with the Afghan central government and their Western backers.

In the national parliament in Kabul, Shaukria Esakhil, a lawmaker from Baghlan province, shared details of the attack and lamented the security problems female officials face working in Afghanistan.

“It happened in the center of the city,” she said. “How can a woman work under these kinds of conditions?”

One month ago, a member of the Afghan national parliament escaped injury when her convoy was attacked by Taliban insurgents in eastern Afghanistan.

The Taliban rigidly oppose education for girls and women’s participation in public affairs, citing their narrow interpretation of conservative Islam and southern Afghan tribal traditions. Militants carry out beatings and other brutal punishments for perceived women’s crimes from immodesty to leaving home unaccompanied by a male relative.

In the eastern province of Nangrahar bordering Pakistan, 10 people in a residential compound were killed in an overnight operation involving NATO and Afghan forces, government spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai said.

Abdulzai said he had no details about the identities of those killed early Monday and NATO had no immediate comment on the report.

In the neighboring province of Laghman, a roadside bomb struck a U.S. military vehicle in Ali Shing district, according to provincial police chief Gen. Abdul Karim Omeryar. A NATO spokesman confirmed the attack but said there were no immediate reports on casualties.