A brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai and one of the most powerful men in southern Afghanistan was killed today.
"I confirm that Ahmad Wali was killed inside his house," said a spokesman for the governor of Kandahar province, where Ahmad Wali Karzai lived and was head of the provincial council.
The head of the counter-terrorism department at the Interior Ministry said that the killing was probably the work of someone from Ahmad Wali Karzai's inner circle.
"It appears Ahmad Wali Karzai has been killed by one of his bodyguard, and there was nobody from outside involved," he told Reuters.
"My younger brother was martyred in his house today. This is the life of all Afghan people. I hope these miseries which every Afghan family faces will one day end," the Afghan president said at a news conference in Kabul. He gave no more details.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they had persuaded one of Mr Karzai's bodyguards to turn on him. The hardline insurgent group often exaggerate claims, however.
Mr Karzai had survived at least one other assassination attempt in recent years. A half brother of the president, he was a critical power-broker who helped shore up his brother's influence in volatile southern Afghanistan.
He said in May 2009 that he had been ambushed on the road to Kabul by Taliban insurgents, who killed one of his bodyguards in an early morning attack. In November 2008 he also escaped unscathed from an attack on government buildings in his home province which killed six.
Foreign officials saw Ahmad Wali as a polarising figure who could complicate their efforts to win over the population and supplant the Taliban by bringing improvements to the way the province is governed. But they also recognised his huge reach and worked closely with him despite misgivings.
The president's brother had also been accused of corruption and ties to Afghanistan's huge opium trade that helps fund the Taliban-led insurgency. Ahmad Wali Karzai had denied the accusations.
The United Nations said in a recent quarterly report that over half of all assassinations across Afghanistan since March were in Kandahar.
Reuters