Ayaz Gul
VOA News
March 7, 2018
ISLAMABAD — A senior Afghan provincial government official was among at least three people killed by a suicide bomber Wednesday in an eastern part of Afghanistan.
The attack in Jalalabad, capital of eastern Nangarhar province, targeted and killed Abdul Zahir Haqqani, the director of religious affairs and Haj pilgrimage department, officials said.
A provincial government spokesman told VOA a suicide bomber walked up to Haqqani’s vehicle on a busy road and blew himself up. Haqqani’s bodyguard was also among the dead and the explosion wounded about a dozen people, mostly mostly passersby, added Ataullah Khogyani.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
Haqqani was a vocal critic of the Islamist Taliban and would publicly condemn Islamic State militants for killing Afghan civilians in the name of religion.
He had until Wednesday survived several attempts on his life and lost his brother in one of those attacks.
Islamic State loyalists use Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan, as their main base for attacks in the province and elsewhere in Afghanistan.