Bomb kills anti-Taliban Afghan MP

A key anti-Taliban lawmaker was killed with four other men Thursday when a bomb tore through their vehicle in Afghanistan's flashpoint southern province of Helmand, officials said. The Taliban movement said it carried out the attack that killed Helmand MP Dad Mohammad Khan, who received death threats from the extremist insurgents who control swathes of the volatile opium-producing province. "A remote-controlled roadside bomb struck a Corolla-type vehicle in which esteemed MP from Helmand province, Dad Mohammad, the highway police commander and three of Mohammad's bodyguards were martyred," the interior ministry said. A cousin of the MP confirmed the killing from the scene. "I am here where the bomb blast took place. We are carrying out the bodies now," Akhtar Mohammad told AFP by telephone. The killing took to 10 the number of MPs who have died in attacks since they were elected in Afghanistan's first democratic parliamentary vote in 2005, lower house press officer Haseeb Noori told AFP. Six died in a suicide bombing in the central province of Baghlan in mid-2007 and two were killed in Kabul, including one in an attack on a military parade last April. In July last year, Kandahar MP Habibullah Jan was shot dead by unknown gunmen. Khan, who was in his mid-50s, was known for his long opposition to the Taliban, which dated back to the hardliners' time in government between 1996 and 2001, locals told AFP. He was appointed Helmand provincial intelligence chief after the Taliban were driven from power in the 2001 US-led invasion -- a post he held until the parliamentary elections.