Afghan elections delayed in Kandahar province after top officials assassinated

KABUL — The Afghan government on Friday delayed legislative elections by one week in Kandahar province after the provincial police chief and intelligence chief were assassinated by a Taliban gunman, leaving a dangerous security vacuum in the region that is home to the insurgents.

A spokesman for President Ashraf Ghani announced just after noon that the National Security Council had decided in an “extraordinary meeting” that Saturday’s polls would be suspended, as recommended by provincial leaders and the National Election Commission.

Thursday’s brazen attack, which was immediately claimed by the Taliban, was aimed at a meeting of senior U.S. military and Afghan leaders in Kandahar city. Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, escaped unharmed, but Lt. Gen. Abdul Razik, the Kandahar police commander, and Abdul Momin, the provincial intelligence chief, died of gunshot wounds, officials said.

[U.S. Afghanistan commander survives attack that kills top Kandahar officials]

The provincial governor, Zalmai Wesa, was hospitalized with severe injuries. Initial reports that he too had been killed were inaccurate.

The slaying of Razik, 39, a fierce anti-Taliban official who was considered the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan, sent shock waves through the country and further weakened the grip of the Ghani administration, which has been struggling to secure the country in the violent run-up to parliamentary elections.

The Taliban vowed to “severely disrupt” the polls, in which some 2,500 candidates are running for 249 seats in the lower house of parliament. Ten of those candidates have been killed in pre-election violence, along with more than 100 other Afghans.

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