Afghan governor, 3 others die in blast near Kabul

By Hamid Shalizi

KABUL (Reuters) - An Afghan provincial governor and former cabinet minister was among four people killed in a bomb blast near Kabul on Saturday, police said. Taliban insurgents later claimed responsibility.

Logar governor Abdullah Wardak, a commander of one of the armed factions that helped U.S. troops overthrow the hardline Islamist Taliban in 2001, died on a dirt road outside his home in Paghman, 20 km (12 miles) west of the capital.

Police gave varying accounts of the attack. Senior Kabul police officer Ali Shah Paktiawal said Wardak was killed when a remote-controlled device was detonated next to his car.

Earlier, Logar police chief Ghulam Mustafa Mohseni said Wardak had been killed in a suicide attack.

"The governor was leaving his house for the office," Mohseni told Reuters by telephone from Logar.

"The suicide bomber was waiting near his residence. As the governor came out with his driver, he was targeted and killed."

Mohseni had no further details.

Paktiawal told Reuters that Wardak's driver and two of his bodyguards were also killed in the blast, which he said was the work of "Afghanistan's enemies", a term often used by officials to describe Taliban insurgents and other militants.

A statement on the Taliban's Web site said they had carried out the attack, using a remote-controlled bomb.

After the Taliban's fall from power in late 2001, Wardak served as a government minister under President Hamid Karzai before becoming governor of Logar, where the Taliban and other militants are active.

He is the second provincial governor to be assassinated in recent years. Attacks against politicians, police and civil servants are fairly common in Afghanistan.

Overnight, five rockets landed near a U.N. compound in the western province of Herat but caused no damage, an official said.

That attack came hours after authorities were forced to close the province's only airport briefly after two rockets landed on its perimeter, again without causing casualties or damage, officials said.

The resurgent Taliban rely largely on suicide attacks and roadside bomb blasts in their insurgency against the Karzai government and the foreign troops backing it.

Nearly 3,000 people have died violently in Afghanistan this year, the bloodiest period since the Taliban's overthrow.