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                    Taliban Assassinate Afghan Army General

   by Ayaz Gul

   Taliban suicide bombers have assassinated a senior army general and his
   body bodyguard in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province, Afghan
   officials said Friday.

   Three gunmen disguised as guests but with explosives strapped to their
   bodies entered the home of General Khan Agha in the Dand district late
   Thursday. They opened fire on their hosts before blowing themselves up
   or getting killed in a firefight with security forces, Regional Corps
   Commander General Dawood Shah Wafadar told VOA.
   A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack, saying two
   of its suicide bombers participated in it and 10 Afghan security
   personnel, including Agha were killed while many other wounded. The
   insurgent group often gives inflated casualty figures in such attacks.

   The deadly overnight attack also seriously wounded a teenage son of the
   slain general.

   Wafadar said Agha, the deputy head of 205th Atal Military Corps for
   civilian affairs, routinely received guests at his residence.

   Separately, at least seven police officers were killed in a suspected
   insider attack in Kandahar's Arghandab district early Thursday.
   Officials said the slain members of the Afghan Local Police, or ALP,
   were asleep when three of their colleagues sprayed them with bullets
   and fled the scene along with the victims' weapons and ammunition.

   The U.S.-sponsored ALP is a community policing system established about
   six years ago to protect villages and remote districts around
   Afghanistan because of the insufficient presence of army and police
   forces there.

   A Taliban spokesman later claimed responsibility for the incident,
   saying the assailants were its loyalists and returned to the insurgent
   ranks after carrying out the attack.

   Insider attacks have killed up to 30 Afghan security forces since
   January 1. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for most of them.
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References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/taliban-assassinate-afghan-army-general/3254635.html