Suicide attack kills Afghan solon

MAZAR-I-SHARIF—A suicide bomber killed a prominent Afghan lawmaker and 12 other people at his daughter’s wedding party in the north of the country on Saturday, officials said.

The attacker embraced MP Ahmad Khan, a former militia commander, in front of wedding guests before detonating the explosives strapped around his waist, a security forces spokesperson said.

The head of local intelligence was also among the dead after the attack on the party in Aybak, the capital of normally peaceful Samangan province, which was attended by other high-ranking government officials.

An ethnic Uzbek, Khan had served as a commander during the decades of conflict in Afghanistan.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Zabiullah Mujahid, a purported Taliban spokesperson, told AFP that he was “unaware” of an attack by the militant group in northern Afghanistan.

More than 13 bodies had been brought to the central hospital in Samangan, as well as 60 wounded people, hospital head doctor Mansor Fayez told AFP.

“The dead include MP Ahmad Khan and the head of intelligence of Samangan,” he said.

The security force spokesperson, Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, put the toll higher.

“So far we have 22 people, including Ahmad Khan killed, and more than 100 others wounded,” he said.

The attack in Samangan bears the hallmark of an emboldened Taliban insurgency spreading to the north from the south and east, where they traditionally hold sway.

Northern Afghanistan is relatively peaceful but suffers sporadic violence. In April, a suicide attack in Faryab province killed 12 people, mostly civilians.

Last year, a Taliban suicide attack killed Gen. Daud Daud, a regional police commander and once Afghanistan’s most powerful antidrug czar, in Taloqan, the capital of northern Takhar province.

The wedding attack was the latest on a politician. An Afghan women’s affairs official was killed on Friday when a bomb attached to her vehicle exploded in an attack that also critically wounded her husband and daughter, police said.

Hanifa Safi, Laghman provin- cial women’s affairs director was killed when a magnetic bomb was attached to her vehicle.

Laghman provincial government spokesperson Sarhadi Zwak blamed Taliban insurgents for the attack.

The Taliban have waged a bloody insurgency since their ouster from power following a US-led invasion shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

Attacks by the Taliban kill hundreds of civilians every year, but many Afghans worry that security will worsen after 2014, or even that civil war could reignite, when international troops pull out.

There are currently around 130,000 international troops in Afghanistan and all Nato-led combat forces are due to leave by the end of 2014.