8 Haqqani men held for Kabul blast

Afghan forces arrested eight members of the feared Haqqani militant network who they said carried out a suicide attack this week on journalists working for the country’s most-watched television channel.

The Haqqani network, which mainly operates out of Pakistan’s border areas, is blamed for some of the deadliest and most sophisticated attacks on US and Afghan troops in Afghanistan.

The National Directorate for Security, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, said in a statement those arrested were behind the attack that killed seven journalists in Kabul.

The journalists died when returning home after a day’s work when their company minibus was rammed by a car driven by a suicide bomber in evening rush hour traffic.

NDS said the arrests were made in a district in the southeast Kabul and no further details were given.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing and said they targeted Tolo TV, Afghanistan’s largest private television network, because it was producing propaganda for the US military and its allies.

The Taliban openly threatened to target the station after it reported allegations of summary executions, rape and kidnappings by Taliban fighters during the battle for the northern city of Kunduz in 2015.

Tolo, which created Afghanistan’s first 24-hour news channel, has won a reputation for fast and credible reporting.

During their five years in power, the Taliban banned television to stop people viewing what they derided as vulgar, immoral and anti-Islamic material.