Kandahar’s mayor killed in suicide attack
The mayor of the southern Afghanistan city of Kandahar has been killed by a suicide bomber – the latest in a string of attacks on influential officials in the country.
The bomber detonated his explosives near the office of Mayor Ghulam Haidar Hamidi, said Zalmay Ayoubi, the spokesman for the Kandahar provincial governor.
He added that the bomb appeared to have been hidden in the man’s turban.
Mr Hamidi had been speaking to local people about a land dispute when the explosion occurred, witnesses told AFP.
The mayor had been seen as a possible figure to fill the political vacuum left by the death of President Hamid Karzai’s half-brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, who was assassinated two weeks ago in Kandahar.
A week before that, a senior aide to President Karzai, Jan Mohammad Khan, died in an attack on his home in Kabul.
The violence comes as Nato forces begin the handover of security to local troops in parts of the country.
Assassinations in Afghanistan this year
28 May: Gen Mohammad Daud Daud, police commander for northern Afghanistan, killed in provincial governor's compound in Takhar
15 April: Khan Mohammad Mujahid, police chief of Kandahar province, killed in attack on police HQ
13 April: Pro-government tribal elder Haji Malik Zarin killed in attack in Kunar province
10 March: Abdul Rahman Sayedkhili, police chief of Kunduz province, killed in Kunduz city
29 Jan: Abdul Latif Ashna, deputy governor of Kandahar province, dies in attack on convoy in Kandahar city
7 Jan: Border police commander Haji Ramzan Aka killed in Spin Boldak
