Afghan parliament member mistakenly killed by police
KABUL (AP) — A member of the Afghan parliament was mistakenly killed in an early-morning shootout between his bodyguards and police officers, officials said Wednesday.
Mohammad Yunos Shirnagha, a lawmaker from northern Baghlan province, was killed as he returned home around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, said provincial police chief Gen. Kabir Andarabi.
Officers were hiding in an area near the provincial capital, Pule- Khumri, where they expected militants to transport a Taliban commander wounded in fighting Tuesday, local police said. That battle left four police officers and four insurgents dead, according to police.
When Shirnagha’s vehicle arrived in the area, police shouted for it to stop. When the driver did not stop, a gunfight broke out between police officers and bodyguards protecting Shirnagha, a member of Afghanistan’s upper house of parliament.
The lawmaker’s driver also was killed, and one of his friends was wounded, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
President Hamid Karzai ordered the Interior Ministry to conduct an “urgent” investigation, according to a statement from Karzai’s office. The ministry has sent its chief of counterterrorism, Abdul Manan Farahi, to the area to investigate.
Karzai spent the day visiting wounded Afghan soldiers and policemen and touring an academy for new police recruits. U.S. Commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal and Afghan government officials joined Karzai at the training academy.
In Helmand province Wednesday, a bomb killed three civilians and wounded five people, including a soldier, said Daud Ahmedi, a spokesman for the provincial governor.
A Taliban commander responsible for several roadside bomb attacks was killed in a clash with Afghan and international forces in Zurmat district of Paktia province in the southeast, according to a NATO statement.
The Defense Ministry, meanwhile, reported that four militants were killed in two separate operations Tuesday. In the Qarabagh district of Ghazni province, three insurgents were killed by a joint Afghan-international force, the ministry said. An Afghan army and police patrol killed a militant suspected of making bombs in Zabul province, the ministry said.
In Washington, the State Department’s internal watchdog on Wednesday criticized the agency’s nearly $2 billion anti-drug effort in Afghanistan for poor oversight and lack of a long-term strategy.
The department’s inspector general said the Afghanistan counter-narcotics program is hampered by too few personnel and rampant corruption among Afghan officials.
The inspector general’s report also noted that despite a consensus among U.S. agencies that eradicating poppy fields is essential, the focus has shifted to interdiction of drug organizations and alternative-crop projects.
That shift is advocated strongly by Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The 69-page review also said U.S. embassies in Afghanistan and Pakistan are not adequately coordinating the program’s activities.