Afghan higher education minister survives bombing

PanARMENIAN.Net - An Afghan minister survived an insurgent roadside bombing Sunday, July 15, the third attack on high profile officials in three days, AFP reported citing a provincial governor.

Obaidullah Obaid, the higher education minister, was travelling between the northern provinces of Baghlan and Kunduz when his motorcade hit a roadside bomb, similar to those used by Taliban insurgents.

The minister escaped unhurt but two policemen escorting his convoy were wounded, Munshi Abdul Majeed, the Baghlan governor said, blaming the blast on the Taliban.

In a separate attack Sunday, a twin bombing wounded 14 people in Logar province south of Kabul. The second explosion hit security forces as they gathered to investigate the first one, police said. The casualties were mostly police, army and intelligence investigators.

The bombings came a day after a suicide attacker killed a prominent Afghan MP and former warlord, Ahmad Khan, targeting him at his daughter's wedding party in the northern town of Aibak in Samangan province.

Sixteen other people were also killed and dozens more were wounded.

On Friday, the Laghman provincial women's affairs director, Hanifa Safi, was killed when a bomb attached to her vehicle exploded, critically wounding her husband and daughter, police said.

Suicide attacks and roadside bombings are favored weapons of Taliban Islamists, who have waged an insurgency against the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai since their regime was ousted in 2001.