Suicide attack targets Afghan deputy governor in Balkh province

KABUL: (MEP) – A suicide attack in northern Afghanistan targeting a deputy governor has killed one person and left four others injured police sources said.

The attack took place on Sunday morning in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, in Balkh province.

The attacker, carrying bombs on his body, jumped out of a roadside ditch and ran into Mohammad Zahir Wahdat’s motorcade before detonating the explosives.

The deputy governor survived unhurt in his armored vehicle, but two of his bodyguards were wounded, provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi said.

A civilian passer-by was killed and two other civilians were wounded, the police chief said.

“The bomber was hiding in a ditch. When the governor’s motorcade slowed down for a speed bump, he jumped up and ran into the convoy while detonating,” he told the AFP news agency.

Also on Sunday, police found the bodies of six men on the side of a road in the southern province of Zabul, Al Jazeera reported.

Authorities said that the bodies belonged to civilian workers kidnapped last week by the Taliban in the neighboring province of Kandahar, the center of the Taliban’s fight against US and Afghan forces.

Zia-ur-Rahman Durani, the Kandahar police spokesman, said the men had been hanged before their bodies were dumped.