 Afghan security forces have killed a man and arrested five as they step up a hunt for militants behind the Kandahar mosque bombing that left 21 dead this week, officials said on Saturday. Police shot dead one man who refused to stop his motorcycle at a checkpoint Friday night, as security forces combed the southern city for the suspected Al Qaeda perpetrators behind the country's worst bomb attack in two years.
| [BANG!] "Stop or we'll shoot!" |
"We've arrested five people in connection with the bombing," Niaz Mohammed Sarhadi, district chief of Panjwayi, told AFP. One of the captured men was wounded as he attempted to escape through a police checkpoint, he added. Wednesday's bomb blast killed 21 people and wounded more than 50 as mourners gathered for the funeral of a Muslim cleric who was gunned down after speaking out against the former Taleban regime. The visiting Kabul police chief, General Akram Khakriazwall, was among those killed in the attack, blamed by security officials on Al Qaeda militants. Dozens of police, soldiers from the US-trained National Army and intelligence agents have launched a search for the militants involved, said an official in the provincial intelligence department who asked not to be named.
The offical said the suicide bomber was part of a five-member team of Al Qaeda-linked militants who had entered Kandahar to carry out attacks on government and US targets. "We've intelligence reports that he was not alone," the official said. "They were five people. One of them blew himself up, and we're searching for the others." |