Former Afghan premier shot dead; attacks in Kabul (Roundup)

May 3, 2007, 13:03 GMT

Kabul - Afghan legislator and former prime minister Abdul Saboor Farid was shot dead in Kabul Thursday, while a roadside bomb targeting an army bus killed one and wounded 26, police said.

Farid, a member of the upper house of parliament from Kapisa province, was shot dead in front of his house in the northern part of Kabul Wednesday night, Interior Ministry spokesman Zemaria Bashary said.

Farid was shot several times from a moving car in Khairkhana as he was entering his house. No group immediately took responsibility for the killing, which was being investigated by police.

The legislator previously had close ties with mujahedin leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who currently leads a group of insurgents fighting the US-backed government along with the Taliban.

He also briefly served as prime minister in 1992 during the mujahedin's government after the religious fighters forced out the Soviets and Afghanistan was plunged into civil war.

Meanwhile, at least one person was killed and another 14, including seven army officers, were wounded in Kabul when a bomb hidden in a cart selling fruit was detonated by remote control, the chief of the investigation branch of the Kabul police told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa at the site of the blast.

The attack happened in Taimany, a northern district of Kabul, and targeted a bus the soldiers were taking to work, he said.

'We were riding on the bus when suddenly there was an explosion,' said Niaz Mohammad, an employee of the Defence Ministry, who suffered light injuries. 'I don't know what happened.'

'Several friends of mine were killed and wounded,' he said.

'There was a big bang and smoke and dust billowed from the site,' Ali Nazar, a witness, said, adding that he saw several badly wounded people rushed to hospital.

The person killed was the bus driver, and the injured were seven officers and seven civilians, Paktiawal said.

However, the Defence Ministry said in a statement that 23 soldiers and three civilians were wounded in the blast that was carried out 'by enemies of Afghanistan,' a term often used by Afghan authorities to describe Taliban insurgents.

The Taliban took responsibility. 'In this incident, the bus was destroyed and 35 army soldiers were killed and wounded,' the Taliban said in a statement on its website.

The area was cordoned off by police, army and NATO soldiers, and police were investigating the bombing.

Both the bus and a van skidded off the road while the cart in which the bomb was placed was blown to pieces.

In a separate incident, Afghan and coalition forces killed eight insurgents, including three foreign fighters and their local Afghan commander, on Tuesday in the Gerishk district of the southern province of Helmand, the Interior Ministry said in a statement Thursday.

No more information was given.