BOMB EXPLODES INSIDE AFGHAN POLITICIAN’S SOFA

A former Communist general-turned-politician has been killed by a Taliban bomb hidden in his sofa.

Abdul Jabar Qahraman was campaigning for Saturday’s parliamentary election in Afghanistan and became the tenth candidate to die ahead of the polls when the blast tore through his campaign office.

The Taliban took responsibility for the attack, which also killed three of Qahraman’s companions in the capital of Helmand province.

Qahraman had been a key figure in the last days of Afghanistan’s Soviet-backed government, holding military power in the south of the country until he went into exile in 1993.

After the fall of the Taliban, he returned to Afghanistan and was elected as an MP.