Image copyright AFP Image caption Gen Raziq (C) was a powerful opponent of the Taliban

A top Afghan security commander, Kandahar police chief Gen Abdul Raziq, has been shot dead by a bodyguard.

Taliban militants claimed the attack after a high-level meeting inside the governor's compound, saying they had targeted Gen Raziq and top US commander Gen Scott Miller, who escaped.

The local intelligence head was also killed and the governor was critically injured. Three Americans were hurt.

The attack in Kandahar city comes ahead of elections on Saturday.

In a statement, the Taliban referred to Gen Raziq as a "brutal police chief". It said it had targeted both him and Gen Miller, but the Pentagon denied that the US commander was among the key targets.

Initial reports said the attacker was killed in an ensuing shoot-out.

The assassination is seen as a hugely significant victory for the Taliban and a major blow to the Afghan and US counter-insurgency campaign.

It is the first time since the 2001 US-led military intervention that the top commander of US/Nato forces has been involved in such an incident.

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the attack would not affect the US military's movements in Afghanistan.

What happened?

Afghan and international security officials said Gen Raziq was shot in the back as he left the meeting and walked towards an area where the helicopter taking the US group back to Kabul was coming in to land.

"Provincial officials including the governor, the police chief and other officials were accompanying the foreign guests when the gunshots happened," said Jan Khakrezwal, head of the Kandahar provincial council.

There are reports that the local army commander also died. Local officials suggested that Gen Miller appeared to have been saved by his body armour. The US military only said that he was uninjured.

At least two hand grenade explosions were also reported.

Gen Miller paid tribute to Gen Raziq, saying he had "lost a great friend".

Gen Raziq has long been accused of human rights abuses, including torture. But he was a powerful opponent of the Taliban in their southern heartland and was credited with securing Kandahar.

Loss of a powerful Taliban opponent

By Dawood Azami, BBC World Service

This is one of the most important security incidents of the past 17 years - in which nearly the entire leadership of a province has been eliminated.

While Gen Raziq, 40, was the provincial police commander of Kandahar, his influence went beyond his native province. Over the past few years, he had emerged as one of the most powerful military and political figures in Afghanistan.

He was considered as one of the strongest opponents of the Taliban and Pakistan and had transformed himself into a symbol of the anti-Taliban struggle in Afghanistan. He had previously survived nearly 20 attempts on his life.

In the absence of such experienced and die-hard figures, the Taliban could mount a campaign to increase their territorial control as the loss of an important leader opens a window of opportunity for the militants.

Where does this leave the election?

Afghan officials had warned that attacks ahead of the parliamentary election were likely. The Taliban has warned voters not to take part in what they say is a ballot imposed by foreigners.

Some expressed fears that Gen Raziq's death could keep voters away from polling stations.

"Gen Raziq's death will have a huge impact on security and the election in the south because a lot of voters may not feel safe to go to vote," a senior security official told Reuters.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Afghan "war on terror" generation votes

The vote is the third parliamentary election to be held since the Taliban were removed from power in 2001.

At least 10 candidates have been killed in attacks around the country in the run-up to the vote. There have also been attacks on voter registration centres, including one in April which killed nearly 60 people.

The vote is being seen as a test of political reforms undertaken by the Afghan government as well as its ability to organise a free and fair vote.

It comes ahead of the all-important presidential elections due in April 2019.

What about US forces in Afghanistan?

American combat operations against the Taliban officially ended in 2014, but over 8,000 US special forces remained in the country backing and providing training and assistance to Afghan troops.

Last year, US President Donald Trump signalled he would keep US boots on the ground indefinitely amid concerns that the Taliban was gaining ground.

The US forces are part of the Nato-led Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, which has more than 16,000 personnel.</s>Afghan General Abdul Raziq, 45, known for his fierce stance against the Taliban, was killed along with a local intelligence commander Abdul Mohmin when a bodyguard opened fire after a meeting in the governor's compound in Kandahar.

Kandahar Governor Zalmay Wesa was also severely wounded on Thursday and contradictory reports whether he survived could not be confirmed early on Friday.

General Scott Miller, the top US commander in Afghanistan who attended the meeting with Raziq only moments earlier, was not hurt in the attack. Three Americans were wounded.

In a claim of responsibility, the Taliban said they targeted both Miller and Raziq.

"It's the loss of a patriot," US defence chief James Mattis said on Friday, referring to Raziq's death.

Born in Spin Boldak district of Kandahar, Abdul Raziq Achakzai, an ethnic Pashtun, was from the Adozai subtribe of the Achakzai tribe.

His father and uncle were killed by the Taliban in 1994. Soon after, Abdul Raziq and his family fled to Pakistan until the Taliban was ousted in the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Upon returning he joined an anti-Taliban force in Kandahar under Gul Agha Sherzai and Fayda Mohammad, which overthrew the Taliban government in the city.

He started off as a young border policeman working between Kandahar and Pakistan's Baluchistan province in 2001. Over the years, he steadily rose the ranks of the security forces.

Because of his strong commitment in fighting the Taliban, Raziq, a favourite of the US-led coalition, received significant aid for training and weapons from the United States over the past few years as he was viewed as one of the country's most effective leaders, crediting him with keeping the Taliban in check in Kandahar.

He was known to stay away from politics and instead dealt with the Taliban and other armed groups in a bid to maintain stability. A critic of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Raziq also led a militia in Kandahar.

Rights group widely criticised Raziq for allegedly ordering the torture and mistreatment of detainees he suspected of having Taliban affiliations.

New York-based Human Rights Watch called Raziq "Kandahar's torturer-in-chief". It released a report describing credible allegations that Raziq was "widely suspected of complicity, if not of personal implication, in severe human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and … secret detention centers".

Under Raziq's watch, detainees underwent "suffocation, crushing the testicles, water forcibly pumped in the stomach and electric shocks", it said.

All allegations had been denied by Raziq.

He had survived several assasination attempts against him over the years. In an interview with TOLOnews, a local Afghan news channel, he said he escaped 29 attempts on his life.

Last year, he narrowly escaped an attack in which five diplomats from the United Arab Emirates were killed in Kandahar.

In 2012, he was targeted by a suicide bomber and also the same year his convoy was struck by a roadside bomb.

Raziq took over as Kandahar's police chief after his predecessor, Khan Mahammad Mojayed, was killed in a suicide attack in 2011.</s>General Abdul Raziq once boasted he had survived "countless" Taliban attempts to kill him. On Thursday the Afghan militant group finally succeeded when an assassin disguised as a governor's bodyguard shot him dead.

The controversial Kandahar police chief, described by Human Rights Watch last year as the southern province's "torturer in chief", had risen through the ranks to become one of the most powerful security heads in Afghanistan.

Widely seen as a bulwark against the Taliban insurgency, Raziq's death has left a dangerous security vacuum that one observer said could lead to a "meltdown" in the south, the Taliban movement's birthplace.

"He was the one guaranteeing security in Kandahar," said a foreign diplomat in Kabul.

Raziq, 39, who controlled the province with an iron hand, was admired by many ordinary Afghans and hated by the Taliban in equal measure.

Despite accusations of running secret torture chambers, "crushing the testicles" of detainees, and killing thousands of Taliban prisoners -- which he denied -- Raziq was considered an ally by the United States in the fight against the militants.

In a tweet on Thursday, hours after escaping unhurt from the same attack that killed Raziq, General Scott Miller expressed his condolences over the death of his "great friend".

"We had served together for many years. Afghanistan lost a patriot, my condolences to the people of Afghanistan," said Miller, the top US Forces and NATO commander in Afghanistan.

"The good he did for Afghanistan and the Afghan people cannot be undone."

Miller had been meeting with Raziq in a heavily fortified compound in Kandahar city when a member of the provincial governor's security team opened fire on the high-level gathering. The Taliban described the shooter as an "infiltrator".

Raziq and two others, including the provincial intelligence chief and a journalist, were killed in the attack. Another 13 were wounded, including two Americans and the governor.

Raziq, who was illiterate and had three wives, had been fighting the Taliban since the militants executed his father and uncle in 1994, two years before they succeeded in imposing their oppressive regime over most of the country.

When the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, Raziq helped defeat the Taliban in the south and was later appointed a district police chief.

In an interview with AFP last year, Raziq said the Taliban had targeted him "countless times", adding he could remember 20 of the incidents, including at least eight suicide attacks.

Raziq was lucky to survive a 2017 bomb attack that killed six United Arab Emirates' officials, including the UAE ambassador to Afghanistan.

He had left the room in the Kandahar governor's compound where the officials had been meeting moments before a bomb hidden in a sofa exploded.

"When the Taliban are determined to kill me, my soldiers and my people, I cannot be gentle on them, and I can never forgive them," he said.</s>Gen. Scott Miller (C), commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan gestures as he speaks during a change of command ceremony at Resolute Support in Kabul on September 2, 2018.

WASHINGTON – Three top provincial leaders – including the governor and a fearsome police chief – were killed and two Americans injured Thursday in an inside attack by Afghan bodyguards at a security conference in Kandahar. Army Gen. Scott Miller, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, was also at the meeting, but was unharmed.

Agha Lala Dastageri, Kandahar’s deputy provincial governor, said powerful provincial police chief Abdul Raziq was among the dead, along with Kandahar Gov. Zalmay Wesa, who died of his wounds at a nearby hospital.

Dastageri said provincial intelligence chief Abdul Mohmin also died inside the governor’s residential compound where the attack occurred.

U.S. officials disputed a claim by a Taliban spokesman that Miller, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, was the target of the attack.

The two injured Americans included a service member and a civilian, according to Col. David Butler, a spokesperson for U.S. Forces-Afghanistan. A contractor from a NATO coalition partner also was injured.

"This was an Afghan-on-Afghan incident," Butler said in a statement, adding that the two wounded Americans had been "medically evacuated and are stable."

"Gen. Miller is uninjured," Butler said. "We are being told the area is secure."

The spokesman said "the attacker" is dead, although it appears that several bodyguards of Wesa’s elite guard unit were involved in the melee when they turned their guns on the dignitaries at the conference.

In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, the spokesman for the Taliban in Afghanistan’s southern region, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said the Taliban carried out the attack. He said Miller, who took command of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan last month, was the target.

Butler, however, said in his statement that "Afghan officials were the target of the violence."

Miller, 57, has been on the leading edge of major combat operations dating to Somalia. He was also among the first U.S. troops to deploy to Afghanistan after the 9/11 terror attacks. Prior to taking command in Afghanistan, Miller led the Joint Special Operations Command, the military’s elite commando units that deploy around the world. 

 

 In Somalia, Miller led soldiers in the harrowing battle in Mogadishu that became central to the book and movie, “Black Hawk Down.” During that fight, 18 U.S. troops were killed and as many as 1,000 insurgents were killed.

He recalled the fierce fighting that day at a reunion of troops in 2015, according to a story on the Army’s website.

"What drove me and filled me with peace that day was I never thought we were going to be overrun,” Miller said. “Not with the guys I was with. If something had happened to me and I died, I knew I was going home. Because someone was going to get me home. That's a relationship piece that is really, really hard to explain.”

Vanden Brook reported from Washington; Stanglin from McLean, Va. Contributing: The Associated Press</s>KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Gen. Abdul Razeq, one of Afghanistan’s most powerful security officials, was killed on Thursday when a bodyguard opened fire following a meeting in the governor’s compound in the southern province of Kandahar, officials said.

Gen. Scott Miller, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan who had been at the meeting with Razeq only moments earlier, was not injured in the attack. But the local commander of the NDS intelligence service and the Kandahar provincial governor Zalmay Wesa were also killed.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they had targeted both Miller and Razeq, the police chief of Kandahar who had a fearsome reputation as a ruthless opponent of the insurgents in their southern Afghan heartlands.

The attack was a devastating blow to the Afghan government ahead of parliamentary elections on Saturday, which the Taliban have vowed to disrupt.

The attack underlined how precarious the situation remains in Afghanistan even after Taliban and U.S. officials had opened preliminary contacts aimed at establishing the basis for future peace talks.

Officials said Razeq, Miller and the other officials were walking towards a landing zone as the helicopter taking the U.S. general’s party back to Kabul approached to land when the gunman, who was waiting outside, opened fire on the group.

“Provincial officials including the governor, the police chief and other officials were accompanying the foreign guests to the aircraft when the gunshots happened,” said Said Jan Khakrezwal, the head of the provincial council.

At least two hand grenade explosions and sporadic gunfire from around the compound were also reported by officials.

The three Afghan officials were all severely wounded when the gunman opened fire and two members of Miller’s protection detail were also hit in the crossfire but Miller, who took command of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the NATO-led Resolute Support mission last month was not injured.

Local officials said Miller appeared to have been saved by his body armour but there was no immediate confirmation from NATO headquarters.

“The brutal police chief of Kandahar has been killed along several other officials,” a Taliban statement said.

Razeq was criticised by human rights groups but highly respected by U.S. officers who saw him as one of Afghanistan’s most effective leaders, largely responsible for keeping Kandahar province under control.

The flamboyant commander, whose men wore badges bearing his name, had survived several attempts on his life over many years and narrowly escaped an attack last year in which five diplomats from the United Arab Emirates were killed in Kandahar.

A cameramen working for Afghanistan’s RTA state television was also killed on Thursday, the director of the Afghanistan journalists center, Ahmad Quraishi, said.</s>KABUL (Reuters) - The top U.S. general in Afghanistan said on Friday he did not believe he was the target of an attack that killed a powerful police chief, and Afghan officials said the gunman may have deliberately avoided hitting him.

The gunman assassinated the police chief of Kandahar province on Thursday along with a top Afghan intelligence agency officer, but the U.S. commander of Afghanistan’s NATO-led force, General Scott Miller, who was standing nearby when the attack occurred, was not hurt.

“My assessment is that I was not the target. It was a very close confined space. But I don’t assess that I was the target,” Miller told Afghanistan’s Tolo News TV in an interview.

General Abdul Razeq, police commander of the southern province and one of Afghanistan’s most powerful security officials, was fatally wounded by a bodyguard of the provincial governor as he came from a meeting with officials on Thursday.

In addition, the local head of the NDS intelligence service was killed and the provincial governor severely wounded, while the attacker himself was killed.

Miller was also at the meeting and was heading to his helicopter to return to Kabul when the gunman opened fire.

The Taliban claimed the attack in a statement saying both Razeq and Miller were the targets.

Two Americans and a coalition contractor were wounded, however Afghan security officials, who believe Pakistan was involved in the plan, said they believed the attacker deliberately avoided killing Miller.

“They didn’t want repercussions from the U.S. and the international community. It was a pure warning for Miller that they can hit him if they want to,” one of the Afghan officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

Razeq himself was a fierce critic of Pakistan and its intelligence service, which Afghan officials regularly accuse of supporting Taliban operations, a charge Islamabad denies.

On Friday, the chief of the Pakistan army staff issued a statement condemning the Kandahar violence and saying it supported initiatives towards peace in the region.

A foreign security official said Razeq had stopped visiting the governor’s house in recent months because he feared it had been infiltrated and had only gone because Miller and his delegation were there.

The identity of the killer, named by Afghan officials as Gulbuddin, was known immediately, and police have made three arrests, but details of his background or why he carried out the attack remained unclear.

One senior foreign security official briefed on the case said the attacker had been recruited this year as part of the governor’s security detail.

No one had claimed his body, but his colleagues in the security team said his family members lived in the outskirts of Kandahar.</s>Three top Kandahar province officials have been killed by their own guards in an attack at a security meeting that also wounded three U.S. troops, Afghan officials say.

A Taliban spokesperson who claimed responsibility for the attack tells The Associated Press that U.S. Gen. Scott Miller, commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, was the target but escaped unharmed.

Agha Lala Dastageri, Kandahar's deputy provincial governor, said Gen. Abdul Raziq, a powerful provincial police chief, and intelligence chief Abdul Mohmin died immediately in the attack, and Zalmay Wesa, the province's governor, died in hospital.

NATO spokesperson Colonel Knut Peters said Miller, who took command of U.S. and forces and the NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan last month, was uninjured. Three Americans were wounded in the crossfire, according to a tweet from Resolute Support.

The security meeting inside the sprawling provincial governor's residence was being held ahead of Saturday's parliamentary elections.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they had targeted both Miller and Raziq, who had a fearsome reputation as a ruthless opponent of the insurgents.

The attack was a devastating blow to the Afghan government ahead of parliamentary elections on Saturday, which the Taliban have vowed to disrupt.

"The brutal police chief of Kandahar has been killed along several other officials," a Taliban statement said.

Raziq was criticized by human rights groups but highly respected by U.S. officers who saw him as one of Afghanistan's most effective leaders, largely responsible for keeping Kandahar province under control.

A flamboyant commander, he had survived several attempts on his life over many years and narrowly escaped an attack last year in which five diplomats from the United Arab Emirates were killed in Kandahar.

Officials said one of the governor's bodyguards opened fire on Raziq as he came out of the meeting with Miller and other officials, severely wounding him and several other senior officials including the governor.

"Provincial officials including the governor, the police chief and other officials were accompanying the foreign guests to the plane when the gunshots happened," said Said Jan Khakrezwal, head of the provincial council.</s>Kathy Gannon And Amir Shah, The Associated Press 

 



KABUL -- A high-level meeting to lay out security plans for Afghanistan's upcoming parliamentary elections had just concluded when an elite Afghan guard turned his gun Thursday on the departing delegation in an attack that killed the powerful Kandahar police chief but missed the top U.S. commander in the country, Gen. Scott Miller.

The audacious assassination strike, which killed at least one other senior Afghan official and was claimed by the Taliban, underscored the harrowing lack of security in Afghanistan just two days before national elections and more than 17 years after the militant group was driven from power. A Taliban spokesman said Miller was the intended target.

However, Army Col. David Butler, who attended the Kandahar meeting with Miller, said the region's powerful police chief, Abdul Raziq, who was killed in the volley of gunfire, was clearly the target, not the U.S. 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 present when the shooting began. Everyone scattered, and the U.S. participants scrambled toward their nearby helicopter. But a firefight broke out between the U.S. service members and Afghan police when they tried to stop the U.S. 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. He said Kandahar Gov. Zalmay Wesa also died of his wounds after being taken to a local hospital, although security officials in the capital maintained Wesa was wounded but survived.

Three Americans -- a U.S. service member, a coalition contractor and an American civilian -- were injured and in stable condition, said NATO spokesman U.S. Col. Knut Peters.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said the militant group carried out the attack, and Gen. Miller was the target.

Butler disputed that, saying the assailant shot at Raziq and then appeared to spray the area with gunfire before he was killed.

He said Miller and the Afghan leaders had moved outside the palace after several hours of meetings and were standing in small groups in the compound. He said he heard several shots "and we all took cover. It was over in seconds."

"We stabilized and treated the wounded and secured the area," said Butler, adding that Miller made sure the scene was secure and the wounded were taken away by medivac before he left the area and returned to Kabul.

Razik was a particularly powerful figure in southern Kandahar and a close U.S. ally despite widespread allegations of corruption. He ruled in Kandahar, the former Taliban heartland, with an iron fist and had survived several attempts to kill him, including one last year that resulted in the death of five diplomats from the United Arab Emirates.

Raziq's killing "may have major implications on the security situation in southern Afghanistan. As the chief of police in Kandahar, he has kept a lid on the Taliban's insurgency, which has intensified over the past several years," analyst Bill Roggio wrote in the Long War Journal.

The Taliban have vowed to disrupt Saturday's parliamentary elections, warning teachers and students not to allow schools to be used for polling and warning Afghans to stay away from the polls.

Within hours of the attack, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani addressed the nation to assure Kandahar residents it was safe to go to the polls. In an AP interview, his adviser, Ziaulhaq Amarkhil said the attack was meant to disrupt elections and urged voters to defy Taliban threats, saying casting their ballot "would be a big slap on the face of the enemy."

At a news conference in the Afghan capital, Afghanistan's Army Chief Gen. Mohammad Sharif Yaftali said additional troops had been moved from neighbouring Helmand province to Kandahar.

Pakistan's new prime minister, Imran Khan, and its military chief condemned the assault.

"The people and the security forces of Afghanistan have been paying a heavy price due to continued instability and threats from the enemies of peace," Khan said in a statement. "Pakistan stands by the government and the people of Afghanistan in their quest for lasting peace and stability."

Security has been steadily deteriorating in Afghanistan with increasingly brazen attacks being carried out by insurgents and Afghanistan's security forces have been on high alert ahead of Saturday's elections.

Late Wednesday, a NATO convoy was attacked near the Afghan capital, killing two civilians and injuring five Czech troops, Afghan officials and the Czech military said Thursday.

The attack in the Bagram district of Parwan province, also wounded three Afghan civilians, said Wahida Shakar, spokeswoman for the provincial governor.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in Bagram, which is the home of a sprawling U.S. military base.

In recent months, Afghan troops have come under near-daily attacks. NATO troops, which handed over security to Afghan forces at the end of 2014, mostly train and assist with air power. So far this year, eight U.S. soldiers and three other NATO service members have died in Afghanistan.

Associated Press writers Lolita Baldor in Washington and Karel Janicek in Prague contributed to this report.</s>Afghan and international officials say the powerful police chief of the southern province of Kandahar has been killed in an attack.

The attack was claimed by the Taliban.

A senior Afghan intelligence official told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that the attack occurred after a meeting between senior U.S. and Afghan security officials at the governor's office in Kandahar city on October 18.

General Abdul Raziq was shot and died of his wounds after a burst of gunfire at the governor's office, the official said.

A NATO spokesman said the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General Scott Miller, was present at the meeting but was unhurt.

Two American citizens were wounded in a shooting, the spokesman said. No further details were immediately available.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP</s>In this September 2, 2018 photo, provided by the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army Gen. Scott Miller, commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, delivers remarks during the Resolute Support mission change of command ceremony in Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghan officials said Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018 that three top Kandahar province officials have been killed by their own guards in an attack at a security meeting that also wounded two U.S. troops. A Taliban spokesman who claimed responsibility for the attack tells The Associated Press that Miller, was the target. NATO officials say Miller escaped unharmed. (U.S. Air Force/Tech. Sgt. Sharida Jackson, via AP) (AP)
Afghan general and Kandahar police chief Abdul Raziq Achakzai is assassinated by one of his bodyguards during a high-level meeting inside the governor's compound with U.S. general Austin S. Miller. Gen. Miller escaped unharmed according to officials while the governor was critically injured. The Taliban claims responsibility.