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Two foreign journalists shot in Afghanistan | |
(35 minutes later) | |
Two female foreign journalists have been shot by a man dressed as a policeman in eastern Afghanistan, police say. | |
One of the women died, the other was critically wounded, an official said. | |
The incident took place in the remote town of Khost near Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. | |
It comes as Afghanistan intensifies security ahead of presidential elections on Saturday, in response to threats of violence by the Taliban. | It comes as Afghanistan intensifies security ahead of presidential elections on Saturday, in response to threats of violence by the Taliban. |
The new president will succeed Hamid Karzai, who has been in power since the 2001 fall of the Taliban but is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term. | |
Security presence | |
"Two female journalists were shot this morning inside a district police headquarters, one has been killed, while the other is seriously wounded," Khost provincial spokesman Mobarez Mohammad Zadran told the AFP news agency. | |
He said that the gunman was wearing a police uniform. | |
The Taliban has stepped up its attacks in recent weeks, in a bid to disrupt preparations for the election. | |
Last month, a senior reporter for Agence France-Presse, Sardar Ahmad, was killed alongside eight other people when Taliban gunmen attacked a hotel, which was popular with foreigners, in the Afghan capital of Kabul. | |
Nearly 200,000 troops have been deployed across the country to prevent attacks by the Taliban. | |
Rings of security have been set up around each polling centre, with the police at the centre and hundreds of troops on the outside. | |
The BBC's Afghanistan correspondent David Loyn says the election is being protected by the biggest military operation since the fall of the Taliban. | |
Reporting restrictions are in place, limiting what can be broadcast about the candidates. | |
If nobody wins more than 50% of the vote in this round, a run-off election will be necessary. | |
There are eight candidates for president, including former Foreign Ministers Abdullah Abdullah and Zalmai Rassoul, and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai. |