KABUL, Afghanistan – A spate of violence across Afghanistan has claimed the lives of nearly two dozen Afghan police officers and civilians in the past few days, including a district police official assassinated over a recent anti-Taliban campaign.
Two gunmen on motorcycles in Farah Province, in western Afghanistan, killed the police official, Abdul Ghani, in front of his home Friday night, apparently as retribution for a crackdown on the Taliban that killed several insurgents, a spokesman for the Farah governor said.
The targeted hit was a rare example of recent violence not involving a bomb or civilian casualties. In Helmand Province, six Afghan policemen were killed and four were injured Thursday when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle in the Gereshk district. On Friday, three police officers and six civilians were killed by two car bombs in a Kandahar development owned by Mahmoud Karzai, President Hamid Karzai's brother. Meanwhile, an explosion Saturday in Khost, in the east, killed at least one border policeman while wounding eight others.
The annual fighting season is beginning in earnest, including a huge bombing in Kabul on Thursday that injured dozens and killed 16 people, six of them Americans, the deadliest attack in the city in months.
Though unrelated, the assaults underscore the ability of insurgents to attack government forces, despite a decadelong campaign to snuff them out. The acts also undermine the credibility of Karzai's administration and heighten the uncertainty over whether Afghans can maintain security on their own once the majority of international coalition forces withdraw next year.
New York Times
