The Taliban pulled off an assassination of a district chief in the eastern Afghanistan city of Jalalabad this morning - an unusual twist to there normal terror attack in that they planted explosives on the district chief's car and detonated it as his vehicle approached the provincial governor's offices - this attack almost has an al Qaeda flavor to it.
There were five others injured in the blast. And this is just another example of the targeting of public officials in Afghanistan - a trend that started much earlier in Pakistan and saw some success in turning policy towards the Taliban's demands. Let's hope the Afghan's don't fall for the same sort.
The story is from DAWN.
There were five others injured in the blast. And this is just another example of the targeting of public officials in Afghanistan - a trend that started much earlier in Pakistan and saw some success in turning policy towards the Taliban's demands. Let's hope the Afghan's don't fall for the same sort.
The story is from DAWN.
Afghan district chief killed in Jalalabad bombing
KABUL: A bomb blast in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad Monday killed a district chief and injured up to five others, an official and the interior ministry said.
“The explosion targeted the vehicle of La'al Poor district chief Sayed Mohammad Pahlawan at 9:15am this morning,” said Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, spokesman for Nangahar province, of which Jalalabad is the capital.
“He was on his way to the office of the provincial governor,” he told AFP.
He said the explosives had been placed in Pahlawan's car and detonated by remote control, adding that the injured included three of his bodyguards.
The vehicle exploded just 15 metres from the Nangahar governor's office, he said.
Jalalabad is more than two hours drive east of Kabul, and has seen a recent escalation in violent incidents as Taliban-led insurgents spread their footprint in reaction to an increased presence of foreign forces.
The United States and Nato have almost 150,000 troops in Afghanistan battling to quell the insurgency, which is at its most intense in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand.
The interior ministry condemned the killing of Pahlawan as an “un-Islamic and inhumane act by insurgents”.
It said that five other people had been injured in the blast.
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