#Two members of Afghan Human Rights Commission killed by car bomb

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Afghan security forces inspect the site of a bomb explosion in Kabul in May.
Rahmat Gul/AP

Two members of Afghanistan’s human rights commission were killed by a bomb as they drove to work Saturday, the group reported.

Fatima Khalil, 24, a donor coordinator, and the driver, Ahmad Jawed Folad, 41, died after an explosive device attached to their vehicle detonated, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) said in a statement.

The killings took place against a backdrop of increasing violence in the city despite a US-brokered peace process.

“It is intolerable, assassinating human rights defenders is a war crime in the context of armed conflict,” the AIHRC said. Staff there had already been targeted in attacks, according to the statement obtained by Reuters.

Kabul police confirmed the two deaths.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack. A Taliban spokesman denied the group was involved.

The US is leading a plan to get the insurgent Taliban and the Afghan government into peace talks after the United States signed a troop withdrawal deal in February with the militant group to begin the end of more than 18 years of war.