Two school children, including a nine-year-old girl, were shot dead by militants in Afghanistan after their father refused to quit his job as a policeman, officials said on Sunday. Henna and her 16-year-old brother Zelgai were killed by two gunmen on motorcycles late on Saturday while in their father’s car in the Edgah area of Ghazni province, in the south of the country. “They were playing inside my car, and the Taliban maybe thought it was me in the car. They opened fire at the car and killed my children,” the father, Zalmai, who uses just one name, told AFP. He said the Taliban had warned him several times in the past that his family would be at risk if he did not leave his job. “The children were killed by Taliban because their father is a policeman working for Ghazni’s municipality,” provincial spokesman Fazil Sabawoon said, blaming hardline Islamist insurgents for the attack.
