A younger brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he survived an attack yesterday when gunmen opened fire on his convoy and killed one of his bodyguards.
Ahmad Wali Karzai — who heads the provincial council in troubled southern Kandahar — said the attackers opened fire with rockets and heavy machine guns on his convoy heading down a highway near the capital Kabul.
“We were driving to Kabul. All of a sudden we were attacked from the mountains by rockets and PK machine guns,” Karzai said. “My car was in the lead, my bodyguards were driving in a separate car just behind me which was hit. One of my bodyguards was hit and later died.”
PHOTO: EPA
The politician said he had been returning to the capital from the eastern city of Jalalabad after talks with dozens of tribal elders from Kandahar.
Wali Karzai is a controversial figure who has been accused by some Western media outlets of involvement in Afghanistan’s huge drugs trade. He strongly denies the allegations.
Earlier, a group of army soldiers opened fire in a market in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, killing three shopkeepers, police said.
The three soldiers are being held in an army compound following the shooting in Jalalabad, said provincial Police Chief General Mohammad Ayub Salangi. A spokesman for Nangarhar’s governor confirmed three dead civilians and one wounded.
Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign ministry said that a planned summit to be hosted by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with his Afghanistan and Pakistan counterparts has been postponed.
The summit, scheduled for today, was put off because of the busy program of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said.
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