Gunmen Open Fire on Afghan Film Director

One of Afghanistan's first female film directors was reportedly shot Tuesday when three gunmen opened fire on her car in Kabul. Saba Sahar, also a popular actress and advocate for women's rights, was taken to a hospital, where she underwent a successful operation, her husband tells the BBC. Emal Zaki says he heard gunshots about five minutes after 44-year-old Sahar left home, headed to work with four others: a driver, two bodyguards, and a child. When he called Sahar, who explores justice and corruption in her films, she told him she'd been shot in the stomach.

"She received first aid and we transferred her to the emergency hospital and then to the police hospital,” Zaki says of his wife, also an interior ministry employee and trained police officer. He adds the bodyguards were also shot and injured, while the two other occupants escaped unharmed. ToloNews reports a bodyguard was injured as well as the driver. In response, Amnesty International described a "rise in attacks and assassination attempts on human rights defenders, political activists, journalists and film actors" and demanded that the perpetrators be held accountable. (More Afghanistan stories.)