Gunmen assassinated Afghan Vice President Abdul Qadir on Saturday, the interior minister said. His driver was also killed but the gunmen escaped.
Qadir, one of three vice presidents chosen by last month’s grand council, was gunned down outside the Ministry of Public Works, according to Interior Minister Taj Mohammed Wardak.
Qadir also served as the public works minister and governor of Nangarhar province. He played a leading role in last year’s ouster of the Taliban.
Qadir was the brother of legendary rebel commander Abdul Haq, who was captured and hanged by the Taliban last year after slipping into the country to organise resistance to the Islamic militia.
Qadir was one of the Pashtuns appointed to the Cabinet of President Hamid Karzai in an attempt to provide ethnic balance after complaints from Pashtuns that they were being sidelined in favour of Tajiks from the former northern alliance which fought the Taliban.
During the 1980s Soviet invasion, Qadir was a key commander with Hezb-e-Islami, an anti-Soviet faction led by conservative Islamic cleric Yunus Khalis.
It was the second Cabinet minister assassinated since the Taliban collapsed last year.
On February 14, Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Abdul Rahman was killed at Kabul airport under mysterious circumstances. Rahman was initially reported killed by a mob of Muslim pilgrims angered that they had been unable to travel to Mecca.
Later, Karzai blamed Rahman’s killing on a conspiracy involving members of his own police and intelligence services and said it sprang from a personal vendetta. However, no one has ever been charged with the death and some of those publicly named remain in power. -Sapa-AFP