A SUICIDE bomber killed at least 23 people in eastern Afghanistan, including the country’s powerful deputy head of intelligence, in an attack yesterday the Taliban claimed as a high-profile assassination.
With violence rising, Afghanistan has been in political limbo since the August 20th elections. The poll was a major test for incumbent Hamid Karzai after eight years in power and for US president Barack Obama’s new regional strategy to defeat the Taliban.
Lutfullah Mashal, governor of Laghman province, who escaped injury in the latest attack, told Reuters the bomber burst from a shop and blew himself up while officials were getting into cars outside a mosque in the provincial capital Mehtar Lam.
He said the 23 dead included two provincial officials as well as Abdullah Laghmani, deputy head of the powerful national directorate for security and one of the highest-ranking security officials in Mr Karzai’s government to be killed.
“It is obviously the work of the Taliban who are trying to destabilise Afghanistan by trampling Islamic values,” Mr Mashal said. Thirty-six people were wounded.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the Islamist group had sent a suicide bomber to carry out the Mehtar Lam attack, a deliberate attempt to kill Mr Laghmani.
“Laghmani was one of the most important targets for the Taliban that we successfully eliminated,” Mr Mujahid said by telephone from an undisclosed location.
Afghanistan’s election commission later released new partial results from the presidential election which showed Mr Karzai maintaining his lead over his main rival, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, by 47.3 per cent to 32.6 per cent.
The tally, with more than 60 per cent of polling stations counted, suggests Mr Karzai could be on course to a win in a single round, although the outcome is still close.
Votes have yet to be tallied from many parts of the south, where Mr Karzai draws strong support, and where Mr Abdullah has accused the president’s camp of stuffing ballot boxes on a massive scale.
A second round run-off must be held if no candidate wins more than 50 per cent of the vote, most likely in early October.
Violence in Afghanistan this year had already reached its highest level since the Taliban were ousted by US-backed Afghan forces in 2001 and escalated further in the run-up to the ballot.
Meanwhile, the United Nations reported that land under opium poppy cultivation had fallen by nearly a quarter this year. The biggest fall was in Helmand, Afghanistan’s most violent province and site of major US and British offensives this year.
Afghanistan produces 90 per cent of the world’s opium, used to make heroin. Political leaders and military commanders believe the illegal trade funds the insurgency, fuels corruption and undermines the government they are fighting to support.
Prices for opium have tumbled, persuading farmers to switch to other crops, and 800,000 fewer Afghans now work in the trade, the UN report said. Drugs now make up just 4 per cent of Afghanistan’s economy, down from 27 per cent in 2002, it said. – (Reuters)