KABUL, Jan 23 (AFP) - Four people including a local police chief have been killed by a roadside bomb blast in southern Afghanistan, officials said Sunday.
Wazir Mohammed, police chief of Char Chino district of Uruzgan province, was killed with his father, his brother and his bodyguard as he was driving from his home to his office on Saturday, interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told AFP
"It is the work of enemies of peace and stability," Mashal said of the remote-control bombing on Saturday afternoon.
Provincial governor Jon Mohammad blamed remnants of the country's ousted Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime.
"It is the work of the Taliban. They had planted the bomb for the police chief," Mohammad said.
Remnants of the Taliban are active in southern and southeastern provinces of Afghanistan, mainly along the border with Pakistan.
A US-led attack topped the Taliban in late 2001 after they refused to hand over Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
In addition to Afghan forces there are 18,000 US-led foreign troops hunting Taliban and Al-Qaeda fugitives, mainly in the south, and around 8,000 NATO-led peacekeepers in big cities.
01/23/2005 08:00 GMT - AFP