US general survives Taliban attack
KABUL (AP) — Afghanistan was reeling yesterday, a day after an audacious assassination claimed by the Taliban that killed two senior officials in Kandahar province while the top US commander who attended the high-level meeting where the attack happened was unharmed.
Thursday’s meeting, on security plans for Afghanistan’s parliamentary elec- tions this weekend, had just concluded when an elite Afghan guard turned his gun on the departing Afghan delegation, killing the powerful Kandahar police chief and at least one other senior Afghan official.
A Taliban spokesman said the top US commander in the country, Gen. Scott Miller, was the target.
The attack, more than 17 years after the Taliban were driven from power, underscores the harrowing insecurity in Afghanistan ahead of the elections.
US Army Col. David Butler, who attended the meeting with Miller, said the Kandahar police chief, Abdul Raziq, was clearly the target, not the US general.
“It was pretty clear he was shooting at Raziq,” Butler told The Associated Press, adding that Miller was nearby but not in the line of fire.
The delegates had just gathered for a group photo when gunfire broke out inside the provincial governor’s compound in Kandahar City, according to an AP television cameraman who was there.
Everyone scattered, and the US participants scrambled toward their helicopter.
But a firefight broke out between the US service members and Afghan police when they tried to stop the US delegation from reaching their helicopter, said the cameraman.
Besides Raziq, Kandahar’s intelligence chief, Abdul Mohmin, was killed in the attack, according to deputy provincial governor Agha Lala Dastageri.