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Vice mayor of Kandahar fatally shot while praying in mosque
Insurgents killed the vice mayor of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar as he prayed at a mosque, an official said Tuesday, the latest brazen attack on a government official in a volatile region where troops are preparing for an assault on Taliban forces.
Meanwhile, NATO said one of its convoys in Khost province, on the border with Pakistan, fired on a vehicle that ignored warnings to stop Monday night, killing four people in the car.
It said two of those killed were later identified as "known insurgents," although the provincial chief of police, Abdul Hakim Hesaq Zoy, said the dead were all civilians and included a 12-year-old.
Lt. Col. Todd Vician, a NATO spokesman in Kabul, said the four were found to be unarmed.
In the Kandahar slaying, assailants entered the mosque and shot Azizullah Yarmal while he and dozens of others were praying during services Monday night, said Zalmai Ayubi, spokesman for the surrounding province, also called Kandahar. Although many Afghan cities have multiple vice mayors, Kandahar had only one, Ayubi said.