KANDAHAR, June 9: The second most senior policeman in Afghanistan's Kandahar province was shot dead late on Saturday, police said, in the latest in a series of assassinations in the city.

Gen Mohammad Daud Saleh, a deputy provincial police chief, was shot dead by gunmen on a motorbike as he left a barber shop in the centre of the city, Kandahar province police chief General Ismatuallh Alizai said.

He is the most senior policeman to be assassinated in the province. Saleh was one of two generals in the provincial police department, the other being Alizai.

Alizai blamed the attack on the “enemies of the country,” a term Afghan officials use to mean Taliban fighters involved in a growing insurgency that has been joined by other rebels, including from Al Qaeda.—AFP