Unidentified gunmen shot dead an Afghan woman journalist, the second such killing in less than a week, officials said today.
Zakia Zaki, who also served as headmistress of a school, ran a private radio station partially funded by a Western media group. The 35-year-old married woman was killed at her house in Parwan province, north of the capital Kabul late on Tuesday.
Zaki was threatened recently by some factional commanders in her area to shut down the station or face death, the head of Afghanistan's Independent Journalist Association said. "She believed in freedom of expression, that's why she was killed," Rahimullah Samander said.
Authorities said an investigation had been launched. Her killing follows the murder of Sanga Amach, a news presenter for a private television station, at her home in Kabul last Friday. Authorities say they have arrested some suspects in connection with Amach's murder.
She had also been ordered by unidentified people to stop her work. Two years ago, a popular television presenter was shot dead at her house in Kabul. Her death was seen as a so-called honour killing, an attack carried out by a relative because she was deemed to have offended her family's honour. Independent media has flourished in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
Meanwhile two NATO soldiers were killed today in separate clashes with insurgents in southern Afghanistan, the alliance said in a statement.
NATO did not identify the two soldiers or give their nationalities.