Blast kills Afghan provincial governor
Bomb placed inside mosque in capital of eastern Logar province went off as Arsalah Jamal was giving speech to mark Eid.
Afghan officials say a bomb placed inside a mosque has killed the governor of the eastern Logar province.
They said the explosion occurred as Arsalah Jamal was delivering a speech on Tuesday morning to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
The governor’s spokesman, Din Mohammad Darwesh, says the bombing took place at the main mosque in the provincial capital of Puli Alam.
Rais Khan Abbul Rahimzai, Logar’s deputy police chief, said the explosion also wounded 15 people, five of them critically.
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Al Jazeera’s Jane Ferguson, reporting from Kabul, said: “Arsalah Jamal was close to President Hamid Karzai. He had a successful political career as a deputy manager of Karzai’s election campaign in 2010 and also as the minister for borders.
“There had been five different attempts on Jamal’s life before Tuesday’s fatal attack.”
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing but the Taliban has been targeting Afghan officials, military and NATO troops as part of a campaign to retake territory as international troops withdraw in advance of a full pullout at the end of 2014.
Jamal was recently in the spotlight following his revelation that a senior commander of the Pakistani Taliban was taken into custody by American forces in Logar on October 5.
US officials confirmed that Latif Mehsud, a leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, was captured in a military operation.
At the time, Jamal told the Associated Press news agency that Mehsud was captured as he was driving along a main highway in Mohammad Agha district.
The road links Logar with Kabul.