ASADABAD: Gunmen shot dead an Afghan intelligence agent and his wife and their two sons in their beds early yesterday, officials said, pinning the murders on Taleban-linked militants.
In other violence linked to an extremist insurgency, a deputy provincial governor and his police chief escaped a Taleban attack unharmed while security forces said they had killed at least 10 insurgents.
Khas Kunar district deputy intelligence chief Mohammad Sharif and his family were asleep when several militants attacked their home in the eastern province of Kunar near the border with Pakistan, Afghan authorities said.
The official, his school teacher wife and their two sons, aged over 18 years, were killed, district governor Sayed Mahboob told AFP.
“This cannot be a personal feud or enmity, this is indeed the work of Taleban,” he said.
Provincial governor Fazlullah Wahidi confirmed the killing and said the “enemies of the people of Afghanistan” were responsible. This term refers to the Taliban as well as other radical factions involved in daily unrest.
Afghans working for the Western-backed government are among the key targets of the Taleban, who were themselves in power between 1996 and 2001.
A convoy carrying the deputy governor of the central province of Ghazni, Mohammad Kazim Allah Yar, and his police chief, Mohammad Khan Mujahid, came under attack yesterday but the men escaped unharmed, a government spoken said.
Their police escort was able to return fire and believed they had killed some of the attackers, spokesman Ismail Jahangir told AFP.
The governor of neighboring Logar province, Mohammad Jan Abdullah Wardak, was assassinated on Saturday an attack claimed by the Taleban.
