A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque in southern Afghanistan, killing a deputy provincial governor and five other worshippers in the latest assassination of a senior official in Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government, officials said.
The bomber struck on Thursday in the Helmand provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, killing deputy governor Pir Mohammad, provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal said.
The blast also wounded 18, including two children, Andiwal said.
Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said an Afghan from the eastern Paktia Province carried out the attack. His claim could not be independently verified.
Karzai called the attacks "brutal and terrorist acts" that do not spare places of worship.
"[These attacks] are unIslamic acts of enemies of Afghanistan, aimed at innocent civilians and Muslim people," Karzai said.
Andiwal said Mohammad had just arrived at the mosque from a meeting at the nearby compound of the Helmand governor.
The mosque's prayer leader was also killed, he said.
Haji Ikramullah, who was on his way to pray at the mosque when the blast shook the ground, said he saw dead bodies inside and wounded people crying in pain.
Taliban regularly attack Afghan officials as part of their attempts to weaken the control of US-backed Karzai's government.
The mosque blast happened hours after another suicide bomber in a car targeted an Afghan army bus in Kabul, killing one civilian and wounding four other people, including a soldier, officials said.
Meanwhile, militants in eastern Nuristan Province beheaded four road construction workers and dumped their bodies on the side of the road on Wednesday, deputy provincial police chief Mohammad Daoud Nadim said.
In Kabul, hundreds of people demanded the release of an Afghan journalist who was sentenced to death last week after he was found guilty of insulting Islam.
The demonstrators from the small, secular Solidarity Party rallied in front of the UN office in support of 23-year old Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh, who was sentenced by a three-judge panel in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif for distributing a report he had printed off the Internet to journalism students.
The article asked why Islam permitted men to have four wives but women could not have multiple husbands.
Kaambakhsh has appealed.
Human rights groups have condemned the sentence, but Afghanistan's upper house of parliament welcomed the ruling and criticized "international interference."
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