5 killed as blast hits Afghan governor's funeral

TANI (Afghanistan)—A suicide bomber struck Monday at a funeral for a provincial governor assassinated by the Taliban a day earlier, and four senior members of the government at the service escaped unhurt, officials and witnesses said. Five people were killed and at least 30 wounded.
The blast went off near a tent where more than 1,000 people had congregated in Tani district of Khost province in eastern Afghanistan at the funeral for Gov. Abdul Hakim Taniwal. He was killed Sunday along with two other people in a suicide attack outside his office in Gardez, the capital of neighboring Paktia province.
Taniwal was the most senior official killed in a series of attacks by supporters of the Islamic regime, which was ousted by U.S.-led forces for harboring Osama bin Laden in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Mohammed Ayub, the provincial police chief, said at least five police were killed Monday. The attacker also died.
Between 30 and 40 other people were wounded and taken brought to the hospital in the Khost provincial capital, about 30 miles to the north of Tani, Dr. Alam Gul said.
Ayub said four federal ministers — for interior, refugees, telecommunications and administrative affairs — were leaving the funeral when the bomb went off and were unhurt. They were about to leave by helicopter when the bomb went off. They had been about 800 yards away from the explosion, he said.
Police established two security cordons around the ministers who flew out soon after, he said.
An AP Television News cameraman at the scene said police fired warning shots in the air as the crowd panicked after the blast and rushed to escape, amid fears there might be a second bombing.
Sunday's attacker, with explosives attached to his body, ran toward Taniwal's car as he left the office and detonated a bomb. The governor's nephew and a bodyguard also died. Three police were wounded.
Mohammed Hanif, who claims to speak for the Taliban, claimed responsibility for that attack and threatened more.
Taniwal had been governor of Paktia for about a year and a half. Before that, he was federal minister of mines and industry in the Cabinet of President Hamid Karzai.
The attack came amid a surge in violence that has left hundreds dead across Afghanistan in recent months, the bloodiest period since the Taliban's ouster.
Taniwal died on Sunday with his nephew and bodyguard in a suicide attack outside his office in the Paktia capital of Gardez that was claimed by the Taliban.
The deadliest violence has been in the south, where NATO-led forces have been struggling to restore order. Their presence has sparked intense fighting with insurgents.
The alliance reported Monday that a 10-day offensive airstrikes and artillery near the main southern city of Kandahar have killed another 92 suspected Taliban fighters, pushing its toll of militant dead past 510.
There has been no independent confirmation of the casualty numbers from Operation Medusa, which began Sept. 2. Hostilities have prevented journalists from reaching the battlefield. Taliban spokesmen have disputed the high figures and said the alliance should display bodies as proof.
"With our considerable technical intelligence, human intelligence and surveillance onto the battle area, we are able to establish figures to a reasonable level of accuracy," a NATO statement quoted Col. Chris Vernon, chief of staff for the NATO force in the south, as saying.
"The Taliban in the Panjwayi-Zhari area have suffered significant attrition."
The latest deaths came when insurgents staged a counterattack in Kandahar province on Sunday, the statement said. It added that the casualties in the province's Panjwayi and Zhari districts were in addition to 94 militants it had already reported as dying in a clash earlier that day.
NATO has said that 20 foreign soldiers have died in the operation, 14 of them in British reconnaissance plane crash. It says it has yet to confirm any of the several civilian casualties reported by Afghan government and hospital officials.
NATO spokesman Maj. Scott Lundy said that Taliban fighters were fleeing the battlefield but its forces were maintaining pressure on them.
Residents said hundreds of insurgents left the area on Saturday night.
Also Monday, Afghan security forces supported by NATO regained control of a remote southern town after six-day occupation by Taliban militants, police said.
NATO warplanes launched airstrikes in the fighting in Garmser, in volatile Helmand province, that left 20 Taliban fighters dead or wounded, provincial police chief Ghulam Nabi Malakhel said. But the security forces only retrieved four bodies since the militants took the others away.
Taliban militants had seized the district headquarters Sept. 6 after an attack that forced police to flee for the second time in two months.—Agencies