Taliban fighters killed a journalist's relative as they step up door-to-door hunts for people with links to the West

• Germany's Deutsche Welle broadcaster said the Taliban was hunting its reporter.
• It said fighters killed one of their relatives and seriously injured another, while others escaped.
• Reports say the Taliban are going door to door to find journalists and people with links to the West.

Taliban fighters killed the relative of a Deutsche Welle journalist in Afghanistan as the group steps up its searches for people connected to or who worked for the West.

The German broadcaster Deutsche Welle said that Taliban fighters who were searching for its journalist had shot dead one of their family members, and seriously injured another relative, while other family members escaped and are now on the run.

It reported that the Taliban were searching door-to-door for the journalist, who now works in Germany.

It said it was "not revealing the name of the journalist or the location of his family as their lives are still at risk."

Deutsche Welle also said the Taliban had raided the homes of at least three other of its journalists.

Peter Limbourg, the director-general of Deutsche Welle, said its journalists were in danger.

"The killing of a close relative of one of our editors by the Taliban yesterday is inconceivably tragic, and testifies to the acute danger in which all our employees and their families in Afghanistan find themselves," he said.

"It is evident that the Taliban are already carrying out organized searches for journalists, both in Kabul and in the provinces. We are running out of time!"

The Taliban have said that, unlike the last time they were in power, they will protect women, minorities, and journalists.

But multiple reports say they are searching door-to-door for such people. An intelligence document prepared for the UN, which was reviewed by Insider's Matthew Loh, said the Taliban were "intensifying" efforts to hunt down people who helped US or NATO forces, or the previous government in Afghanistan.

Some Afghan journalists also said their homes had been raided by the Taliban, Reuters reported.