Taliban
fighters in Afghanistan have shot and killed the relative of a Deutsche Welle
(DW) journalist while on the hunt of the journalist himself, the Germany-based
public broadcaster said on Thursday. The Taliban militants were doing a
door-to-door search to seek out the journalist who now works in Germany, DW
said.

Another
relative of the journalist was also attacked but managed to escape after being
severely wounded. DW director general Peter Limbourg condemned the killing and
said that the attack exhibited the danger to media workers and their families
in Afghanistan.

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“The
killing of a close relative of one of our editors by the Taliban yesterday is
inconceivably tragic, and testifies to the acute danger in which all our
employees and their families in Afghanistan find themselves,” the DW director
general said.

He added
that the incident showed that the Taliban are already carrying out “organised
searches for journalists”. According to Limbourg, door-to-door searches for journalists
are being carried out in both Kabul and the provinces. “We are running out of
time,” Limbourg said.

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The Taliban
raided homes of at least three journalists working with DW, the broadcaster
said. DW and other German media houses have called upon the German government
to take swift action to help their staff in Afghanistan.

The killing
of an international journalist flies in the face of one of Taliban’s claims
that it would allow the media to work freely when in power.

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A
confidential United Nations document accessed by AFP showed that the Taliban
have intensified their search for people who worked with the United States and
NATO forces.

A few
months ago, an Indian Pulitzer prize-winning photojournalist named Danish Siddique,
who was embedded with Afghan forces, was killed by the Taliban when their
vehicle was ambushed near a border post near Pakistan.