KANDAHAR, Sept 25: Gunmen on motorbikes shot dead a top women’s affairs official in Afghanistan in an Taliban-style assassination on Monday while US troops and attack helicopters killed 10 rebels.
In other attacks similar to scores of others executed by extremist Taliban insurgents, a double bombing killed two policemen and a suicide blast wounded a coalition soldier, officials said.
Turbanned men on motorcycles lay in wait for Safia Hama Jan, head of the women’s affairs department in Kandahar province, and opened fire on her as she was leaving for work early on Monday, witnesses and officials said.
The men fired Kalashnikovs into her car as she was about 150 metres from her home in Kandahar city, they said.
Around four bullets struck her head, a correspondent who saw the body said.
“She was heading down to her office when she was shot,” said police officer Abdul Ali at the scene of the murder. Her driver was wounded.
Hama Jan, who was in her mid-fifties, had held the position of women’s affairs chief in the province since the ministry was established in 2002.
“The enemies of Afghanistan are trying to kill those people who are working for the peace and prosperity of Afghanistan,” he said.
They must understand that there were “millions” more people like Hama Jan ready to serve their country, he said.
The United Nations mission that oversees development in post-Taliban Afghanistan said it was “appalled at this senseless murder”.
Also on Monday, US soldiers involved in a major new offensive in eastern and central Afghanistan killed 10 Taliban fighters in the eastern province of Paktika, said the US-led coalition force that has about 20,000 soldiers here.
The troops engaged a group of “extremists” with ground forces and attack helicopters, killing 10, it said in a statement.
The troops were part of Operation Mountain Fury launched in five provinces more than a week ago with 7,000 Afghan and foreign soldiers.
In neighbouring Khost province meanwhile, a suicide attacker struck an Afghan army patrol wounding a US soldier who was training the local forces, the coalition said.—AFP
