Deputy intelligence chief among 23 dead in Afghanistan

Suicide bomber kills 23 in east Afghanistan attack
02 Sep 2009 10:51:46 GMT
Source: Reuters
(For more on Afghanistan, click on [ID:nAFPAK])

* Deputy intelligence chief among the dead

* Taliban claim responsibility for attack

* U.N. says opium production falls

* More election results due

By Rafiq Sherzad

MEHTAR LAM, Afghanistan, Sept 2 (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed at least 23 people, including the country's deputy head of intelligence, in an attack near a mosque in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, officials said.

Abdullah Laghmani, the deputy head of the powerful National Directorate for Security, was one of the highest-ranking security officials in President Hamid Karzai's government to be killed. The attack was also one of the biggest this year.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the Islamist group had sent a suicide bomber to carry out the attack.

Sayed Ahmad Safi, spokesman for the governor of Laghman province, put the death toll at 23. He said two senior provincial officials had been killed along with Laghmani.

The bomber struck near a mosque in the provincial capital Mehtar Lam in mountains about 100 km (60 miles) east of Kabul.

A Reuters witness in the town saw a pickup truck carrying wounded people covered in blood. Eight ambulances left the scene, headed towards Jalalabad, the nearest major city.

A police source said Laghman governor Lutfullah Mashal had been wounded but Mashal's spokesman could not confirm the claim.

Violence in Afghanistan this year had already reached its highest level since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in 2001 and escalated further after U.S. and British troops launched major operations in Helmand province in mid-year.

The operations were the first under U.S. President Barack Obama's new regional strategy to defeat the Taliban and its Islamist allies and stabilise Afghanistan, with Washington sending tens of thousands of extra troops this year.

The commander of the 103,000-strong U.S. and NATO force said this week that the situation was serious and deteriorating and the existing military strategy needed to be changed.

OPIUM CULTIVATION, PRICES FALL

In rare good news, the United Nations reported that land under opium poppy cultivation had fallen by nearly a quarter this year. The biggest fall was in southern Helmand, Afghanistan's most violent province. [ID:nISL124513]

Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the opium used to make heroin in the world. Political leaders and military commanders believe the illegal trade funds the insurgency, fuels corruption and undermines the government they are fighting to support.

Prices for opium have tumbled, persuading farmers to switch to other crops, and 800,000 fewer Afghans now work in the trade, the U.N. report said. Drugs now make up just 4 percent of Afghanistan's economy, down from 27 percent in 2002, it said.

(See graphic on http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/RNGS/SEP/DRUGS.jpg)

LIMBO

Afghan politics have been in limbo since an Aug. 20 presidential election, with partial results putting Karzai in the lead but not by enough to avoid a second-round run-off against his main rival, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.

Abdullah accuses the authorities of stuffing ballots on a massive scale, especially in the southern Pashtun-based heartland of Karzai's support where turn-out on election day was crippled by Taliban violence and threats of reprisals.

New partial election results were due later on Wednesday.

Addressing a group of supporters in Kabul on Wednesday, Abdullah stressed his resolve to challenge what he described as "massive and widespread fraud".

"Our approach will be peaceful," he told supporters who had come to Kabul from the northeastern Takhar province. "But our approach will be decisive and honest."

Most ballots in the south have yet to be tallied. The result in the south could put Karzai over the top with the outright majority he needs to avoid a second round run-off.

An independent election fraud watchdog has the power to exclude suspicious ballots and says it is investigating almost 600 cases of fraud serious enough to effect the outcome. (Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi, Sayed Salahuddin and Jonathon Burch in KABUL; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Paul Tait) (For more Reuters coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/afghanistanpakistan)