Kunduz police chief Abdul Rahman Sayedkhili died late Thursday as he was watching roads being cleaned in Kunduz city when a suicide bomber on a motorcycle detonated himself.

General Daud Daud, the police commander for northern Afghanistan, told a press conference: "Unfortunately in the suicide attack last night, the provincial police chief, three of his bodyguards and a civilian woman were martyred. Six people were also injured in the attack."

Officials had previously put the death toll at three killed and eight wounded.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the militant Islamists were behind the blast, telling AFP: "One of our men named Jawad carried out the suicide attack in Kunduz."

President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned the killing in a statement, describing the police chief as "brave" and saying he had made significant breakthroughs against insurgents in the province.

Once relatively quiet, Kunduz and some other parts of northern Afghanistan have witnessed increased violence in recent months.

Afghan police and army officers are frequently targeted in attacks by the Taliban and other insurgents who have been waging war on pro-government forces since being ousted in 2001.

There are around 140,000 international troops in Afghanistan, some two-thirds of them from the United States.

But responsibility for security across the country is set to be handed to Afghan forces in a process due to start in July and be completed in 2014, allowing foreign combat forces to withdraw.

Last month, 19 people including 15 police and an intelligence agent died in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, in attacks focused on police headquarters.

Also in February, 38 people died in an attack on a bank in Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan, where police were collecting their pay, in the country's deadliest attack since June.

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News