US General Doesn't Believe He Was Target of Deadly Attack in Kandahar - Reports

10:49 GMT, 19 October 2018

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) has decided to delay parliamentary elections in the country's southern province of Kandahar over a deadly attack on local officials that took place there a day before, TOLOnews reported, citing sources.

Sputnik

US General Scott Miller has stated that he did not believe he was the target of an insider attack that led to the death of Kandahar's police chief.

"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 TOLOnews in an interview.

TOLOnews reported that the NDS had decided during a special meeting that the election should be delayed, following a proposal by the country's Independent Election Commission and demand of the people of Kandahar.

Kandahar Attack Proves Taliban ‘Becoming More and More Brazen'

18 October 2018, 23:09 GMT

On October 18, Gen. Abdul Raziq, the Kandahar police chief, was shot dead as he was leaving the office of Zalmai Wesa, the provincial governor. The attack has also claimed the lives of provincial NDS chief Abdul Momin Hassankhail, and an Afghan journalist. The governor was injured and US General Scott Miller was wounded as a result of the attack.

The Taliban* radical movement has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Parliamentary elections in Afghanistan are set to take place on Saturday, for the first time since 2010. While the election was supposed to take place in 2016, it was rescheduled over the unstable security situation in the country, where various militant groups, including the Taliban, operate.

*Taliban is a terrorist group banned in Russia