Fausia Kufi in April 2020: Not the first attack
Photo: picture alliance / dpaSuffragette Fausia Kufi was injured in an attack on her in her home country, Afghanistan. The attack happened on Friday on an expressway north of Kabul. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said strangers shot the MP and her sister as the two women got out of their car to do their shopping. Kufi was injured in his right hand, it was said that her health was stable. At first no one confessed to the attack.
President Ashraf Ghani condemned the act in the strongest possible way, as a government spokesman announced on the short message service Twitter on Saturday. Kufi is a former Vice-Speaker of Parliament and is part of the government delegation for the planned peace talks with the Taliban.
The head of the delegation, Mohammed Masum Staneksai, said the security authorities had started an investigation. Kufi is one of four women in the delegation who is soon to negotiate with the radical Islamic Taliban. They want to achieve peace in Afghanistan after two decades of military conflict.
The direct negotiations are to begin as soon as a prisoner exchange is completed. The USA signed an agreement with the Taliban on February 29 that provides for the withdrawal of international troops. In return, the Taliban should guarantee that Afghanistan will no longer pose a terrorist threat. The agreement also obliges them to hold peace talks within Afghanistan. This should be preceded by a prisoner exchange to build trust.
In recent months, however, there have been an increasing number of targeted attacks on human rights defenders, activists and religious representatives. Experts see this as an attempt to intimidate and weaken Afghan civil society before the planned talks.
In 2010, the politician Kufi had already survived an attack. At the time, armed men fired at her when she returned to Kabul after an International Women's Day event.
Icon: The mirrorlov / AFP / dpa