Taliban attack misses U.S. general

But gunman slays top police official, 2 others in Kandahar

The head of NATO troops in Afghanistan, Gen. Scott Miller (center, left), Kandahar Gov. Zalmai Wesa (center, right) and their delegations attend a security conference Thursday in Kandahar, Afghanistan, before a gunman opened fire, killing Wesa and two other officials.
The head of NATO troops in Afghanistan, Gen. Scott Miller (center, left), Kandahar Gov. Zalmai Wesa (center, right) and their delegations attend a security conference Thursday in Kandahar, Afghanistan, before a gunman opened fire, killing Wesa and two other officials.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A gunman wearing an Afghan army uniform opened fire Thursday on participants in a meeting with the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, killing three top southern provincial officials and wounding at least three Americans. But Gen. Austin "Scott" Miller, the target of the attack claimed by the Taliban, escaped unharmed.

Among those killed in the attack inside the governor's compound in southern Kandahar province was the region's top police general, Abdul Raziq, who was seen as the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan.

U.S. military officials confirmed that a U.S. soldier, a contractor and another civilian were wounded in the attack, which occurred shortly after a high-level meeting attended by Miller.

In a news conference later Thursday, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani confirmed that Raziq and the Kandahar provincial intelligence chief "were martyred" in the attack. He said he has sent security authorities from Kabul to assess the situation.

The Afghan Interior Ministry said the provincial governor, Zalmai Wesa, was wounded in the shooting and was rushed to a hospital, where he was later reported to have died of his wounds. The ministry said Miller was not hurt and returned to Kabul.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yusuf Ahmadi, said in an email to journalists that the group carried out the attack and that its "main target" was Miller. Ahmadi asserted that Miller had been killed, a claim also denied by U.S. military officials. He claimed that in addition to Raziq, whom he described as "the savage commander of Kandahar," the dead included Wesa and the Kandahar intelligence chief, Abdul Momin.

The attacker opened fire as the officials were in the governor's compound after a security meeting about crucial parliamentary elections on Saturday, officials said.

The lone attacker was killed after fatally shooting Raziq and wounding several of his bodyguards, Afghan and U.S. security officials said. He was reported to be a member of the provincial governor's security team.

Several current and former officials lamented the death of Raziq, 39, a close U.S. ally and fierce anti-Taliban fighter.

"It is a big loss for Afghanistan," Shakeba Hashimi, a legislator from Kandahar, said by cellphone as she was en route to his funeral at a hospital there. "We have security in Kandahar that we don't have in the capital. It is because of this honorable general."

Amrulleh Saleh, a former Afghan national intelligence chief, tweeted that Raziq had been "an architect of stability" in Kandahar province who had established "deep political networks" in support of the government. "This is a pan-Afghan loss," he wrote.

Afghanistan's ambassador to Pakistan, Omar Zakhilwal, tweeted that Raziq's death was "a dark day" for the country and that he was "shocked and heartbroken by the demise of close friend, great patriot & national hero." He said Raziq had "single-handedly restored stability to a volatile Kandahar and the greater south."

Raziq, a lieutenant general in the Afghan national police, was a controversial official who had been repeatedly accused of torturing detainees and other abuses during his rise to power in Kandahar. At the same time, he earned a reputation as a ferocious opponent of the Taliban and gained the respect of successive American and NATO military officials in Afghanistan.

He had survived a number of assassination attempts, including suicide attacks, but had managed to strengthen security in Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban militants.

Miller, 57, took over last month as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, replacing Gen. John Nicholson. A veteran of some of the U.S. military's most secretive combat units, he formerly served as commander of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command and participated in numerous combat operations, including in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001.

The brazen attack followed a spate of insurgent and political violence during the run-up to parliamentary elections scheduled for Saturday. The Taliban has threatened to "severely disrupt" the elections and warned Afghans against participating in what the radical Islamist group regards as a pretext for perpetuating U.S. intervention in the country.

The Taliban warned students and teachers in particular to stay away from voting places, many of which are in schools. But the group said it would seek to avoid harm to civilians.

On Wednesday, a prominent candidate, former army general Abdul Jabar Qahraman, was killed in neighboring Helmand province by a hidden bomb that exploded while he was holding a meeting at his campaign headquarters in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. Qahraman, an ardent opponent of the Taliban, was the 10th candidate killed during the campaign in the past two months.

Information for this article was contributed by William Branigin of The Washington Post.

A Section on 10/19/2018

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