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Taliban Kill Officer, Bomb Kills 2 01/23 06:21
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The Taliban ambushed and killed an Afghan
intelligence official in southern Helmand province as he was walking home from
work while a roadside bombing in the country's north killed a military
commander and his bodyguard, officials said Thursday.
The attacks were the latest violence in Afghanistan even as the Taliban hold
peace talks with a U.S. envoy tasked with finding a resolution to the 18-year
war, America's longest conflict.
In the Helmand attack, the officer, who headed the intelligence department's
press office for the province, was ambushed late on Wednesday, according to the
provincial police chief's spokesman Zaman Hamdard. Another member of the
intelligence department was wounded in the attack, the spokesman said.
An investigation was underway to find the perpetrators, Hamdard added.
Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack.
The roadside bombing in northern Faryab province took place on Wednesday
morning, killing the commandeer of the Afghan army's First Battalion and his
bodyguard, and wounding two other bodyguards.
According to Mohammad Hanif Rezaie, the military spokesman in northern
Afghanistan, the battalion commander, Capt. Muhib Shah, was traveling to the
volatile Khwaja Sabzposh district when the car he and his bodyguards were in
hit the roadside bomb. The Taliban have not claimed the attack so far.
The Taliban now control or hold sway over roughly half of Afghanistan and
continue to stage near-daily attacks targeting Afghan and U.S. forces, Kabul
government officials or those seen as linked to the government --- even as they
hold peace talks with the U.S. and have given the U.S. envoy a document
outlining their offer for a temporary cease-fire in Afghanistan.
(KR)
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