U.S. general says he may not have been target of Kandahar attack

KABUL/PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - The top U.S. general in Afghanistan said on Friday he did not believe he was the target of an attack that killed the powerful police chief of Kandahar, and Afghan officials said the gunman may have deliberately avoided hitting him.

The gunman assassinated the police chief of Kandahar province on Thursday along with a top Afghan intelligence agency officer, but the U.S. commander of Afghanistan’s NATO-led force, General Scott Miller, who was standing nearby when the attack occurred, was not hurt.

“My assessment is that I was not the target. It was a very close confined space. But I don’t assess that I was the target,” Miller told Afghanistan’s Tolo News TV in an interview.

General Abdul Razeq, police commander of the southern province and one of Afghanistan’s most powerful security officials, was fatally wounded by a bodyguard of the provincial governor as he came from a meeting with officials on Thursday.

“It’s been a long and painstaking journey in which he finally succeeded and got space among the bodyguards of the governor,” one Taliban commander said.

“It’s been a long and painstaking journey in which he finally succeeded and got space among the bodyguards of the governor,” one Taliban commander said.

In addition, the local head of the NDS intelligence service was killed and the provincial governor severely wounded, while the attacker himself was killed. 

Miller was also at the meeting and was heading to his helicopter to return to Kabul when the gunman, whom a Taliban spokesman identified as a 21 year-old from Ghazni province called Raza Mohammad, known as Abu Dujana, opened fire.- Read More

U.S. general doesn't believe he was target of Kandahar attack