Afghan mayor, peace official killed in bomb attack

A bomb attack killed five people including a district mayor and a local member of the government-run peace council when it tore through their vehicle in northern Afghanistan on Monday, an official said. The authorities blamed the attack in Takhar province’s Ishkamish district on Taliban insurgents. The victims were driving to the provincial capital Taloqan for a local government meeting, provincial administration spokesman Faiz Mohammad Tawhidi said. The blast killed a Takhar member of the High Peace Council (HPC), Haji Hashim, and the district’s mayor, Abdul Aziz, along with three other men, he said. The HPC is a government body assigned to make peace with the Taliban, which has been waging an insurgency since being ousted from power in the 2001 US-led invasion. The head of the HPC, former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, was assassinated in Kabul last September in a suicide attack carried out by a militant posing as a Taliban peace envoy. An Afghan policeman wounded at least two foreign soldiers when he opened fire on troops from the US-led Nato mission on Monday, officials said, adding to a spike in such attacks. The shooting took place in Achin, a remote district in the eastern province of Nangarhar, local police chief Abdullah Azim Stanikzai said. Nato confirmed the incident but gave no details. The majority of Nato troops in Nangarhar are American. The shooter escaped unhurt but an Afghan intelligence officer was wounded when coalition soldiers returned fire, Stanikzai added. Seven soldiers of the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) lost their lives over four days last week when Afghan forces turned weapons on their Nato allies. According to Nato, 37 of its soldiers have died in 27 such attacks so far this year, up from 21 incidents and 35 deaths in all of 2011. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack and said the gunman was with the militia. “He’s a brave Afghan. He’s with us,” Mujahid said. Stanikzai said the policeman had just returned from leave. From:Gulftoday