Minister, Governor survive in assassination attempt; 15 insurgents killed
16 July, 2012
PULI KHUMRI/KABUL: Afghanistan's Minister of Higher Education and the Governor of northern Baghlan province survived a bomb attack in northern Afghanistan on Sunday, local officials said.
The blast happened Sunday morning while the Higher Education Minister Obadiullah Obaid and Baghlan governor Munshi Majid were travelling from Baghlan to Kunduz province. A bomb in the road, detonated by remote control, exploded near their car when it was in the Jangal Bagh area of Baghalan-e-Markazi district, Majid said.
"The Minister is safe and no one was hurt in the attack," Majid added.
Local officials said that after the blast, a missile also landed in the area but no one was hurt by that blast either.
No group, including the Taliban, has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The attempt attack on Obaid comes a day after a prominent Afghan lawmaker Ahmad Khan Samangani was killed in suicide attack at his daughter's wedding party in Samarangan on Saturday morning. At least 23 people died in the suicide attack.
Ahmad Khan Samangani was celebrating his daughter's wedding in the Qaser-e-Almas hotel of Aiback city when the suicide bomber approached him around 8:40AM and, while greeting him, detonated his body-borne explosives.
Meanwhile, up to 15 Taliban have been killed and six others detained in operations carried out by Afghan police, army and NATO-led coalition forces within the past 24 hours, the country's Interior Ministry said Sunday morning.
"A total of seven armed Taliban were also wounded during the 10 raids launched by the joint forces in Nangarhar, Laghman, Kunduz, Uruzgan, Wardak, Ghazni, Herat and Helmand provinces throughout the past 24 hours," the ministry said in a statement.
However, the Taliban group, which announced the launching of an annual spring offensive from May 3 against Afghan and NATO forces, has not to make comments yet.
Afghan forces and some 130,000 NATO-led coalition troops have intensified cleanup operations against Taliban and other militants recently but the insurgents in retaliation responded by carrying out suicide attacks and roadside bombings.
Two policemen were injured in a roadside bomb attack against the convoy of Higher Education Minister Obidullah Obid in northern Baghlan province earlier Sunday morning.
"The blast took place at around 08:50 a.m. local time in the Dar-e-Khoshk area of Baghlan-e-Markazi district but Minister Obid was unharmed and kept on his trip to neighboring Kunduz province shortly after the blast," police chief of the district, Colonel Mohammad Kamin, told Xinhua.
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