Bomber kills official, son, 4 other Afghans

KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber killed a deputy provincial governor and five others Tuesday in eastern Afghanistan, police said. Later, a tearful President Hamid Karzai decried the violence, fretting that young people will choose to flee their country.

The bomber rammed a motorized rickshaw loaded with explosives into one of two vehicles in a convoy taking Deputy Gov. Khazim Allayar to his office in Ghazni city. His adult son, a nephew and a bodyguard were also killed, said Ghazni province police chief Zarawar Zahid, as were two civilians nearby. A number of others were wounded, he said.

Afghan government officials are prime targets for the Taliban and other insurgent groups that have instituted an assassination campaign against people who work with either the Afghan government or NATO forces.

Allayar, who held the post for more than seven years, survived a bombing attempt just two months ago in Ghazni city.

The attack came just before presidential spokesman Waheed Omar said the Afghan government had appointed nearly 70 people to a new High Peace Council, formalizing efforts already under way to reconcile with top Taliban leaders and draw insurgent foot soldiers off the battlefield.

The council will guide contacts with Taliban leaders who have reached out directly or through back channels to the highest levels of the government. It is made up of jihadi leaders, former Taliban, former members of the communist regime, civil and religious leaders and representatives of women and ethnic groups.

The Afghan government says it will reconcile with those who renounce violence, embrace the Afghan constitution and sever ties with terrorists.

NATO’s top civilian representative in Afghanistan said Tuesday that “significant leaders” of the insurgency seem interested in striking a political deal with the government.

Britain’s Mark Sedwill told reporters in Washington on Tuesday that it would be a mistake to think that reconciliation could be completed quickly.And he cautioned against making too much of recent signs of interest among some Taliban leaders in possible negotiations with the government.

But he said some senior leaders of the insurgency - whom he did not identify - have accepted political outreach from the Afghan government.

“There are significant leaders who seem to be weary of the fight and seem to be willing to contemplate a future within the mainstream” of the Afghanistan political process, Sedwill said. “What that will amount to is very difficult to say at this stage.”

Karzai condemned the Ghazni attack in a statement. He then called on his fellow Afghans to decry such violence during a speech in the capital about literacy efforts in the country.

“Our sons cannot go to school because of bombs and suicide attacks. Our teachers cannot go to school because of clashes and threats of assassination. Schools are closed,” he said, adding he worries that those among Afghanistan’s youth who can flee will abandon their country, go to school abroad and become estranged from Afghanistan.

“I don’t want my son Mirwais to be a foreigner. I want Mirwais to be Afghan,” Karzai, breaking into tears, said of his 4-year-old son. He asked Afghans not to use war as an excuse to let their country fall apart.

To the Taliban he said: “My countrymen, do not destroy your own soil to benefit others.”

On Monday, Pakistan issued a strong protest to NATO over helicopter strikes that killed more than 70 militants at the weekend, saying that U.N. rules do not allow the choppers to cross into its airspace even in hot pursuit of insurgents.

Information for this article was contributed by Deb Riechmann, Rahim Faiez, Heidi Vogt, Amir Shah, Ishtiaq Mahsud, Robert Burns and Kathy Gannon of The Associated Press.