Female member of Afghan peace deal survives gun attack

Trailblazing Afghan women's rights campaigner Fawzia Koofi, a member of the negotiating team that will hold peace talks with the Taliban, has been wounded in a gun attack near Kabul, officials said on Saturday.

Gunmen opened fire on Koofi, 45, and her sister on Friday when they were returning from a meeting in the province of Parwan near the capital, interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said.

Koofi, a former member of parliament and strong critic of the Taliban, was shot in her right hand, he said, adding that she was in a stable condition.

The Taliban denied they were involved in the attack on Koofi.

The attack drew strong condemnation from Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani — who described it as a "cowardly attack," according to his spokesman Sediq Seddiqi.

Abdullah Abdullah, who heads the national reconciliation council, called on Afghan authorities to bring "the perpetrators of the attack to justice."

The chief of Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission, Shaharzad Akbar, also condemned the "horrific attack." "Worrying pattern of targeted attacks that can negatively impact confidence in peace process," she wrote on Twitter.

Koofi survived a previous assassination attempt in 2010, when gunmen fired at her as she was returning to the capital after an International Women's Day event. She was among the few women in a pan-Afghan delegation that held several rounds of unofficial dialogue with the Taliban in 2019.

Agence France-Presse