Pro-peace Muslim cleric assassinated in Afghanistan

In recent days,Gul has been stressing the importance of “peace and stability” across Afghanistan. Gul was chief cleric in his district and was a member of a clerical council for eastern Afghanistan.

Two members of the NATO coalition,including one American servicemember,also were killed yesterday in southern Afghanistan,the allied coalition reported. NATO has not disclosed the nationality of the NATO servicemember,who died in a roadside bomb explosion,or details about the death of the US troop.

Twenty-five NATO troops,including 16 US service members,have been killed so far this month across Afghanistan,many in the south where NATO troops are moving in as part of a stepped-up security operation in Kandahar.

Last night in Kandahar,a suicide bomber detonated his cache of explosives near the gate of an Afghan Border Police residence. Kandahar Police Chief Sher Mohammed Zazai said at least three people were wounded in the attack in the northeast part of the city.

“There was a suicide attacker on a motorbike who blew himself up when he got near the gate,” Zazai said.

Zelmai Ayubi,spokesman for the provincial governor of Kandahar,said at least four border policemen were injured. He said two other suicide attackers entered the police compound,but were shot dead by police during a gunbattle before they could detonate their vests of explosives.

Earlier yesterday,two militants on a motorbike opened fire in Kandahar on a car belonging to a National Security Directorate official who was on his way to work,Zazai said. The intelligence official’s driver was killed.

Southern Afghanistan is the birthplace of the Taliban and has been the hub of some of the fiercest fighting in recent weeks between militants and coalition forces and troops of President Hamid Karzai’s government.