Suicide bomber kills Kandahar mayor

A suicide bomber Wednesday killed the mayor of Kandahar, Afghanistan, just days after the assassination of President Hamid Karzai's half-brother. Ghulam Haidar Hamidi, mayor of Kandahar, the capital of Kandahar province, died at city hall, CNN quoted a spokesman for the provincial governor as saying. "The suicide attacker placed an explosive device in his turban and detonated it inside the city meeting hall," the spokesman said. The blast also injured a civilian. Voice of America, quoting other officials, said the mayor died when a suicide bomber, hiding explosives in his turban, blew himself up near Hamidi's office. The 65-year-old mayor had campaigned against corruption, embezzlement and land grabbing, The Washington Post reported. A day earlier, there had been a protest outside Hamidi's office over the death of two children in an accident when bulldozers brought down illegally constructed homes in another part of the city. It was when the mayor was preparing to meet with elders from the accident area that the suicide bomber struck, the Post reported. The incident is the latest in a series of killings of top officials and leaders in the country and comes barely two weeks after the July 13 assassination of President Karzai's half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, who had been a powerful figure in the province. Later at a memorial service for the slain leader in a mosque, a suicide bomber killed six people and wounded several others. Taliban violence has escalated coinciding with the start of the withdrawal of U.S. and coalition forces and the handing over of security responsibilities to Afghan security forces, which is to be completed by the end of 2014.