Gunmen firing from a motorcycle killed a former police chief as violence surged in a southern Afghanistan Taliban stronghold, while an explosion hit a peacekeepers' convoy in the north, officials said Friday, according to AP. Abdullah Khan was killed Thursday afternoon while driving his car in Argandab, a town in the southern Zabul province about 160 kilometers (100 miles) northeast of Kandahar, said Zabul province Police Chief Ghulam Nabi Malakhail. Two unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle fired at Khan's car then fled the scene, said Malakhail. No motive was known for the slaying of Khan, who was replaced 18 months ago as a district police chief in Zabul, which borders Pakistan. Police late Thursday also raided a home and detained three suspected Taliban members in Zabul's provincial capital of Qalat, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of Argandab, Malakhail said. They arrested three more suspects on Friday after a tip-off from local people in Zabul's Mizan district, he said. Meanwhile, a roadside bomb planted by a bridge hit a convoy of NATO peacekeepers in the northeastern city of Fayzabad, the capital of Badakhshan province, damaging one vehicle but hurting no one, said Lt. Riccardo Cristoni. He would not reveal the nationalities of the people in the convoy, but said German personnel run a reconstruction team in the province. The German Defense Ministry confirmed the explosion.
