Top Afghan Peace Council Member Is Killed

 

Arsala Rahmani was a negotiator in the Afghan peace council

8:26am UK, Sunday May 13, 2012

A top member of the Afghan peace council and close adviser to President Hamid Karzai has been shot and killed by a gunman in Kabul, according to officials.

Former Taliban official turned peace negotiator Arsala Rahmani was targeted in the west part of the capital, said police spokesman Mohammad Zahir.
He said an unknown attacker in a vehicle fatally shot Mr Rahmani, who had been travelling in another on his way to work.
The victim's grandson Mohammad Waris told AFP: "Shortly after leaving home he was hit by a single bullet from a passing car.
"The bullet passed through his left arm and hit his heart. He died in the hospital."
Mr Rahmani, an ex-member of parliament, was among about 70 influential Afghans and former Taliban members appointed by President Karzai to try to reconcile with the insurgents.

Mr Rahmani was killed in the Afghan capital Kabul

He was a "key negotiator" in the council, said one official, with another claiming he "had recently established contacts with senior Taliban leaders".
Mr Rahmani was the Taliban's higher education minister during their rule from 1996-2001.
He left the insurgent group and joined Mr Karzai's government after the Afghanistan war began in 2001 in the wake of the September 11 attacks by al Qaeda on the US.
The shooting is another blow to efforts to negotiate a political resolution to the decade-long war and came hours after two Nato soldiers were killed by gunmen apparently posing as Afghan police.
The former head of the council, Burhanuddin Rabbani, was assassinated in September last year by a suicide bomber posing as a peace envoy from the Taliban.


From Skynews