Top Afghan police chief killed; US general survives

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — One of the most devastating Taliban assassination strikes of the long Afghan war killed top leaders of Kandahar province Thursday, in an attack that missed the top U.S. commander in the country, Gen. Austin S. Miller, just two days before national elections that had already been undermined by violence.

Inside the provincial governor’s compound in Kandahar City, at least one attacker fatally shot the region’s powerful police chief, Gen. Abdul Raziq, and the provincial intelligence chief. The gunfire wounded the provincial governor, another police commander and three Americans, Afghan officials said.

Raziq, who had survived dozens of attempts on his life, was widely considered Miller to be an indispensable security chief with influence across critical areas of southern Afghanistan, in the Taliban heartland. He was valued by U.S. commanders as a fierce ally against the insurgents, but human rights advocates criticized him for brutal tactics that at times swept up innocent civilians as well as militants.

“At 3:30 p.m., after a meeting about the security of elections, when the highranking participants were heading to helicopters, an enemy infiltrator opened fire on them,” the deputy minister of interior, Gen. Akhtar Mohammad Ibrahimi, said at a news conference. “The police chief, Gen. Raziq, and the provincial intelligence chief, Gen. Abdul Momin, were killed.”

In a statement, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it had specifically been aimed at Raziq and Miller. The U.S. military released a statement confirming that Miller, who was in the compound at the time of the attack, was not hurt, but that three Americans had been wounded.

In a brief televised message, President Ashraf Ghani said that he had dispatched his intelligence chief and other senior officials to Kandahar to investigate the situation.

Accounts of the assassination pointed to an insider attack, carried out by a turncoat among the Afghan security personnel there.

“It’s believed that one of the governor’s guards opened fire, but it is not yet confirmed,” said Agha Lalay Datagiri, the deputy governor of Kandahar.