Afghan governor dies in attack

2006-09-10 13:17

Kandahar - A suicide bomber on Sunday killed a provincial governor, while Nato and Afghan forces killed 94 Taliban fighters, amid deepening violence across the insurgency-wracked country.

The suicide attack in eastern Afghanistan killed three people including the governor of Paktia province outside his office and wounded three, police said.

The attacker, with explosives attached to his body, ran into a car carrying governor Abdul Hakim Taniwal, his secretary and a bodyguard, killing all of them as they left the office in the Paktia capital of Gardez, said provincial police chief Abdul Annan Raufi.

Three police officers on duty there were wounded.

Taliban claimed responsibility

Mohammed Hanif, who claims to speak for the Taliban, claimed responsibility in a satellite phone call to an Associated Press reporter in Pakistan. Hanif said the attacker was an Afghan from Paktia province and threatened more attacks.

"Our mujahedeen will conduct similar attacks. We have prepared a group of self-sacrificing attackers," he said.

Taniwal had been governor of Paktia for over a year. Before that he was federal minister of mines and industry in the cabinet of President Hamid Karzai.

94 militants killed

Meanwhile, Nato said 94 militants were killed in Kandahar province's Panjwayi and neighbouring Zhari districts late on Saturday and early on Sunday, pushing the toll from a nine-day counter-insurgency operation there past 420.

Six Nato soldiers and 14 British crew of a reconnaissance plane have also died.

Operation Medusa began on September 2 in Panjwayi, where hundreds of militants had mobilised just 25km west of the main southern city of Kandahar city - the former seat of the Taliban government overthrown by US led forces in late 2001 for harbouring al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Nato said in a statement that the latest insurgent casualties were inflicted in four separate engagements.

- AP