KANDAHAR: A suicide attacker killed a cousin of outgoing Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the country's Karz district near Kandahar on Tuesday, officials said, raising tensions during a struggle over the contested election result.

“A suicide bomber disguised as a guest came to Hashmat Karzai's house to greet him on Eid,” Dawa Khan Minapal, the provincial governor spokesman in the volatile southern city of Kandahar, told AFP.

"After he hugged him, he blew up his explosives and killed Hashmat Karzai."

Hashmat Karzai, a political figure in his own right, first worked in this year's presidential election campaign for Qayyum Karzai, the president's brother, and later moved to support Ghani when Qayyum withdrew from the race.

Ghani and opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah are at loggerheads over the June 14 second-round election, which has been mired in allegations of massive fraud.

Ghani won the vote according to preliminary results, but an audit of the ballots is under way after Abdullah refused to accept defeat due to fraud claims.

With the audit triggering another outbreak of complaints from both sides, many fear the country could be at risk of a revival of the ethnic violence seen during the 1992-1996 civil war.

This is not the first time that President Karzai's family members have been targeted. His brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, was slain in his home in the city of Kandahar by an unknown attacker seven years ago.