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Three Afghan officials killed
A provincial council member was shot dead by unknown gunmen in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, after Taliban insurgents killed two policemen in a separate incident, officials said.
A provincial council member was shot dead by unknown gunmen in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, after Taliban insurgents killed two policemen in a separate incident, officials said.
Khan Mohammad, a senior member of the council in Nangarhar, was killed while driving to work in the remote Dara-i-Noor district, a provincial government spokesman said.
"At this time we don't know who might have killed him," said Ahmad Zia Abdulzoi.
The two police officers were killed late on Friday as they were going with other policemen to reinforce a police post that had come under attack from insurgents, a spokesman for Laghman province said.
One of the dead was Abdul Aziz, the police chief for the province's Qarghayi district, roughly 70 kilometres (45 miles) east of the capital, Kabul.
"Abdul Aziz, along with another policeman, were martyred after they were attacked by Taliban," provincial spokesman Sayed Ahmad told AFP.
Laghman is one of the provinces around the capital that has seen Taliban-linked violence pick up in recent years as the militants have been able to reassert themselves seven years after the Taliban regime was toppled.
Insurgent unrest has risen steadily in Afghanistan but tribal rivalries, personal feuds and crime also play a part in the fragile nation's poor security.
Several members of Afghanistan's elected provincial councils and national legislature have been killed, many in attacks blamed on the Taliban who are trying to defeat a democratic government installed after decades of war.
