Afghan journalists: Boycott Taliban coverage

Journalists in Kabul have called for a boycott on any coverage of news related to the Taliban after an attack on a hotel by the group left nine people dead — including a well-respected reporter and members of his family.

The call for action came after news that Sardar Ahmad, an Afghan journalist who ran the Kabul Pressistan media company and was news agency AFP's senior reporter in the city, had been shot dead, alongside his wife and two of his children.

"It was a spontaneous move by a group of 50 journalists gathered at the morgue to see his body. We have had several killed over the years, and this was the worst," Kabul-based journalist Mujib Mashal told Al Jazeera.

"The call for boycott is picking up quickly here ... born out of realization that Taliban actually need media — such attacks are solely for the purpose of headline grabbing." 

The journalists who initiated the 15-day boycott argued in a statement released Friday that the Taliban carry out such attacks for the purpose of news coverage and "projecting terror among Afghan citizens."

Meanwhile, tributes poured in for Ahmad. Thursday was Afghanistan's New Year's Eve, called Nawroz, and the 40-year-old journalist had taken his wife and three children to Kabul's Serena Hotel for dinner.

While they ate, four Taliban gunmen, all under the age of 20 years old according to local media, managed to pass the hotel's strict security and enter the restaurant. They opened fire indiscriminately, hitting Ahmad and members of his family. 

Only the youngest, a boy around two-years-old, survived, Mashal said, but remains in critical condition with wounds to his head. Four foreigners were also killed in the attack, according to Tolo News, a Kabul-based news agency.

Journalists behind the boycott call described the Taliban attack "cowardly." Civilians, women, and innocent children around the dinner table were "deliberately and ruthlessly targeted," they wrote, adding that these types of attacks "can never be justified."

"We also ask the Taliban for an explanation of how they justify the shooting from a close-range of innocent children," the statement read.

In a tweet, Mashal recounted a conversation Ahmad had with his five-year-old daughter, Nelofar, about the Taliban last year:

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said after claiming responsibility for the attack, that it shows that "our people, if they decide to attack any place, they can do it."

The killings follow a string of Taliban attacks many say is intended to cause problems in the run up to the presidential and provincial elections on April 5. 

According to Tolo News, the Taliban "have released statements to the press expressly stating the intent to violently disrupt the elections." Also on Thursday, Taliban fighters stormed a police station in Jalalabad, killing 10 policemen.