Senior official assasinated in Afghanistan

An Afghan women's affairs official was killed on Friday when a bomb attached to her vehicle exploded, critically wounding her husband and daughter, police said.

"Laghman provincial women's affairs director Hanifa Safi was assassinated as a result of the explosion of a magnetic bomb attached to her vehicle," provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang told AFP.

"Her daughter and husband along with four passersby were wounded."

Safi and Laghman provincial government spokesman Sarhadi Zwak blamed Taliban insurgents for the attack.

The killing came just days after a shocking video surfaced of the execution of a woman, allegedly by Taliban Islamists, after she was accused of adultery in Parwan just north of Kabul.

The Taliban are waging an insurgency to overthrow the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

The use of a magnetic bomb indicates that Safi was a specific target.

The most recent high-profile assassination was of a senior government peace negotiator, Arsala Rahmani, who was shot dead in his vehicle in Kabul in May.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)