JUST IN: Bomb Blast Kills Journalist

Officials on Thursday confirmed that one local journalist Ilyas Dayee was killed by a bomb explosion in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province.

Dayee was killed after a small bomb attached to his vehicle went off in the provincial capital Lashkargah city, the provincial governor’s spokesman and a local politician told dpa.

His brother and two civilians including a child were injured in the incident.

Dayee worked as a reporter for “Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty” in the volatile Helmand province for about 10 years, the station’s Kabul office manager, Rateb Noori, told dpa.

“He was one our best ones in the Radio. The pain is unbearable.’’ There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion.

Since October, fierce fighting has surged in the province following a major Taliban offensive to overrun the provincial capital. Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced.

Afghanistan is one of the world’s deadliest places for journalists, who face many risks covering the country’s long-running conflict and who have sometimes been targeted for doing their job.

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Last year, the Taliban warned the Afghan media to stop broadcasting what it called “anti-Taliban statements”.

In 2016, a Taliban suicide bomber rammed his car into a bus carrying employees of Tolo TV, the country’s largest private broadcaster, killing seven journalists.

On Saturday, a former and well-known TV presenter was killed in the capital in a similar attack.

(dpa/NAN).