Bomb kills Afghanistan official, 3 guards

KABUL -- A roadside bomb killed a district government chief and three of his bodyguards Sunday in eastern Afghanistan, officials said.

It was just the latest violent incident in a bloody weekend that showed how unstable the country is, though NATO is aiming to hand over security responsibility to local forces at the end of 2014 after more than a decade of warfare against insurgents.

The Afghan government's top official in Laghman province's Alishang district was driving to a meeting with the bodyguards when his car was blown up on the road, provincial spokesman Sarhadi Zewak said.

Zewak said the provincial government believes district chief Faridullah Niazi was targeted by insurgents.

Such assassinations of people allied with the government or international forces have surged this year. The UN reported last week that civilian deaths from such killings jumped 34 percent in the first six months of 2012 to 255 people killed, compared with 190 in the first half of 2011. The victims ranged from police to village elders who worked on programs with international forces.

"Targeted killings, abduction and intimidations have created a climate of fear among officials and deter them from taking up positions and working in these areas," the UN report said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for Sunday's bombing, but it fit the pattern of Taliban assassinations of government workers. The Taliban have said that they do not consider people working with the government or supporting its programs to be civilians, saying that they are collaborators who have chosen to side with the enemy.

In the south, officials said a Taliban attack on a police checkpoint on Saturday night sparked a gun battle that left two police officers and two Afghan civilians dead. Afghan forces were pursuing the attackers in Kandahar province's Panjwai district on Sunday, said Ahmad Jawed Faisel, a spokesman for the province.