Kabul - Afghan legislator and former prime minister Abdul
Saboor Farid was shot dead in Kabul Thursday, while a roadside bomb
targeting an army bus killed one and wounded 26, police said.
Farid, a member of the upper house of parliament from Kapisa
province, was shot dead in front of his house in the northern
part of Kabul Wednesday night, Interior Ministry spokesman Zemaria
Bashary said.
Farid was shot several times from a moving car in Khairkhana as he
was entering his house. No group immediately took responsibility for
the killing, which was being investigated by police.
The legislator previously had close ties with mujahedin leader
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who currently leads a group of insurgents
fighting the US-backed government along with the Taliban.
He also briefly served as prime minister in 1992 during the
mujahedin's government after the religious fighters forced out the
Soviets and Afghanistan was plunged into civil war.
Meanwhile, at least one person was killed and another 14,
including seven army officers, were wounded in Kabul when a bomb
hidden in a cart selling fruit was detonated by remote control,
the chief of the investigation branch of the Kabul police told
Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa at the site of the blast.
The attack happened in Taimany, a northern district of Kabul, and
targeted a bus the soldiers were taking to work, he said.
'We were riding on the bus when suddenly there was an explosion,'
said Niaz Mohammad, an employee of the Defence Ministry, who suffered
light injuries. 'I don't know what happened.'
'Several friends of mine were killed and wounded,' he said.
'There was a big bang and smoke and dust billowed from the site,'
Ali Nazar, a witness, said, adding that he saw several badly wounded
people rushed to hospital.
The person killed was the bus driver, and the injured were seven
officers and seven civilians, Paktiawal said.
However, the Defence Ministry said in a statement that 23 soldiers
and three civilians were wounded in the blast that was carried out
'by enemies of Afghanistan,' a term often used by Afghan authorities
to describe Taliban insurgents.
The Taliban took responsibility. 'In this incident, the bus was
destroyed and 35 army soldiers were killed and wounded,' the Taliban
said in a statement on its website.
The area was cordoned off by police, army and NATO soldiers, and
police were investigating the bombing.
Both the bus and a van skidded off the road while the cart in
which the bomb was placed was blown to pieces.
In a separate incident, Afghan and coalition forces killed eight
insurgents, including three foreign fighters and their local Afghan
commander, on Tuesday in the Gerishk district of the southern
province of Helmand, the Interior Ministry said in a statement
Thursday.
No more information was given.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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