The deputy governor of Kabul was killed in a blast in the Afghan capital, after a bomb attached to his armored vehicle by a magnet was detonated.
Mahbubullah Muhibbi is the latest – and one of the highest-profile — victims of shadowy assailants who have been killing journalists, police, security forces, judicial authorities and senior administrators, largely across Kabul, but also in other parts of Afghanistan.
According to Tariq Arian, Afghan interior ministry spokesman, a magnetic bomb, known as a “sticky bomb”, was attached to an armored vehicle belonging to Mohebi.
The bombing took place in the Macrorayan neighborhood of Kabul.
In another attack in Kabul, gunmen shot and killed a police officer and wounded another policeman, according to Ferdaws Faramarz, spokesman for Kabul’s police chief.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Violence in Afghanistan has not abated despite peace talks between the government and Taliban insurgents.
While such killings have long plagued Afghanistan, they appear to be on the rise since the Taliban signed an agreement with the United States that will see foreign forces withdraw by spring. President Trump most recently ordered that only 2,500 American forces should remain in Afghanistan by January 15 – just five days before his successor Joe Biden is inaugurated.
The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks in the capital in recent months, including horrific attacks on educational institutions that killed as many as 50 people, most of them students.
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