KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Taliban authorities in Afghanistan’s eastern Khost province have arrested a man suspected of killing his 22-year-old wife and their six-month-old daughter, a provincial official said on Friday.
Mustaghfir Gurbaz, spokesman for the Taliban governor of Khost, said the man allegedly shot the pair with a Kalashnikov rifle at around 11 p.m. local time on Thursday and fled the scene. The Taliban forces later detained the suspect, who initially confessed to the killings, according to Gurbaz.
The spokesman provided no further details about the circumstances of the incident or any possible motive.
Similar cases of domestic and family violence have been reported in different parts of Afghanistan in the past, with poverty, unemployment and psychological distress often cited as contributing factors.
Afghanistan has long recorded one of the world’s highest rates of domestic violence, a problem rights groups say has intensified since the Taliban returned to power in 2021. Women’s protection centers and shelters that operated under the previous government have been closed, and access to legal recourse and institutional support for victims has been sharply curtailed.
Between January 2022 and June 2024, the monitoring group Afghan Witness documented at least 840 cases of violence against women and girls, including 332 killings. Experts say the true figures are likely far higher, as many incidents go unreported because of stigma, fear of retaliation and limited access to justice.
