Habib ur Rahman Mansur, mayor of Afghanistan’s north-eastern Badakhshan province, has been killed in an explosion. He is the second senior official of the Taliban administration to be killed in a targeted attack in the region in the past two weeks.
Mansur was killed on Thursday night while travelling in a vehicle in the provincial capital, Faizabad. Afghanistan’s interior ministry confirmed the report but gave no details of the nature of the attack or who was involved.
A senior Afghan official also confirmed the killing on Friday on condition of anonymity, saying they did not wish to be identified because they were not authorised to speak publicly.
The Taliban is preparing to mark the fifth anniversary of its seizure of power in Afghanistan on Aug 15, 2021, the day US and other NATO forces withdrew, after which the Taliban rapidly took control of the country.
Two weeks before Mansur’s killing, Zabihullah Amiri, director of Badakhshan’s information and culture department, was shot dead. Gunmen opened fire on him as he travelled to Faizabad from a nearby area.
Officials said Amiri’s bodyguards returned fire immediately, killing one attacker and detaining another.
No information has emerged so far about the motive behind either attack.
In December 2024, Afghanistan’s refugees minister Khalil Haqqani was killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul. He was an uncle of interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, who leads a powerful network within the Taliban.
A few days after the death of a deputy governor, a memorial gathering was also hit by a suicide bombing in which at least 13 people were killed. Islamic State-Khorasan claimed responsibility for that attack.
In March 2023 the governor of the northern Balkh province was also killed in a bombing at his office.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report