Fawzia Koofi: Afghan negotiator and campaigner shot by gunmen

An attack on one particular of the only gals taking portion in negotiations with the Taliban was a “cowardly and felony” attempt to disrupt the Afghan peace approach, the US envoy has claimed.

Zalmay Khalilzad said he was “relieved” that Fawzia Koofi had escaped Friday’s capturing “with out severe injury”.

Ms Koofi was shot in the right arm although travelling with her sister.

The Taliban have denied they had been guiding the assault, which arrived as the two sides ready for talks.

The militant team has beforehand refused to negotiate directly with the Afghan government, but agreed to take component in the talks aiming to conclude pretty much two a long time of conflict after achieving an settlement with the US in February.

As section of the settlement, the Afghan government experienced to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners. On Thursday, it commenced releasing the last 400 militants. Talks are anticipated to get started in Qatar following the last prisoner is launched.

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But there are fears the attack on Ms Koofi, an outspoken critic of the Taliban who was returning from a meeting in the northern Parwan province when she was attacked around the funds Kabul, could undermine the approach.

“Worrying pattern of qualified attacks that can negatively effects self-assurance in peace approach,” the main of Afghanistan’s Impartial Human Legal rights Fee, Shaharzad Akbar, wrote on Twitter.

Mr Khalizad also took to Twitter, declaring he wanted “all sides who search for peace to not only condemn the attack but to speed up the peace process and get started intra-Afghan negotiations ASAP”.

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The attack, which no 1 has claimed, was also condemned as “cowardly” by President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the Large Council for Countrywide Reconciliation.

Ms Koofi is just one of the few women to have taken aspect in dialogue with the hard-line Islamist team, which dominated Afghanistan right up until they were being removed from electricity in Afghanistan by a US-led invasion in 2001.

They have fought to regain territory considering the fact that. Past 12 months by itself, a lot more than 3,000 civilians were killed in the conflict, in accordance to United Nations figures.

However, the offer arrived at with the US has proved controversial. On Saturday, France objected to the launch of some of the remaining 400 prisoners held by the Afghan authorities – some of whom it claims were involved in the killings of French nationals.