The target of the midday bombing in Kunar province
... which is right down the road from Binny's house in Chitral...
was Malik Zareen, a leader of Afghan forces during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, a provincial police chief said.
The police chief, Khalilullah Ziayi, said seven others were also maimed in the blast in the province's Asmar district.
"Unfortunately, the
suicide kaboomer targeted a local council meeting of the tribal elders," he said.The Afghan Ministry of Education said five schoolboys -- students in the eighth, sixth, fourth and first grades -- were among the 10 killed in what the ministry called an "anti-Islamic and inhumane act." Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid
Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a
Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
also condemned the bombing, saying it was a "terrorist attack against the Afghan people." He said that by killing tribal leaders, the attacker was trying to silence the voice of the Afghan people.
"The strong pillars of Afghanistan are the tribal elders," Karzai said in a statement. "They are trying to solve the problems of the local people." He called Zareen a brave and influential jihadi leader who was working for peace and stability.
The province, along the Pakistain border, has been the scene of heavy fighting
... as opposed to the more usual light or sporadic fighting...
in recent weeks. Six US soldiers were killed in the area on March 29.
Also in the east, a NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants...
service member was killed in a roadside kaboom Wednesday. So far this year, at least 115 foreign troops, have been killed in Afghanistan. The coalition did not disclose the nationality of the service member who died or where he was killed.
In Pashtun-infested Logar province, south of the capital Kabul, a roadside kaboom killed one person and maimed two others who were riding on a tractor, according to the Afghan Ministry of Interior.
The ministry said a security guard was killed and three others were maimed Wednesday when their vehicle struck a roadside kaboom in Sayd Abad district of neighboring Wardak province.
Two children also were killed Wednesday when an old rocket went
kaboom!in Waza Khwa district of Paktika
...which coincidentally borders South Wazoo...
province, the ministry said.