Another key ally of Afghan Prime Minister murdered

ANOTHER key political ally of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been murdered, the third killed by insurgent assassins this month.
The mayor of the volatile city of Kandahar, Ghulam Haidar Hamidi, was killed in a suicide bomb attack yesterday.
The mayor - a target of previous assassination attempts - was killed when the bomber detonated his explosives in the courtyard of the city hall, where Mr Hamidi was making an address.

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The bomb was reportedly hidden in the man's turban. The Taliban yesterday claimed responsibility for the killing.
Mr Hamidi was regarded as a loyal ally of the embattled President, describing him as ''a close family friend''.
He was an accountant in suburban Washington for more than 20 years before returning to his native Kandahar, where he won a reputation - and enemies - fighting corruption and the city's drug lords.
Mr Hamidi said he was aware, but unafraid, of the dangers of his office.
''One day you have to die, you will die in the US by cancer, by car accident, by some other reason,'' he said two years ago. ''And you will die in Kandahar by bullet or by bomb. What's the difference?''
Mr Hamidi's murder is widely believed to be part of a broader political campaign by the Taliban to assassinate high-profile and powerful men.
His death follows the murders of Jan Mohammad Khan, a former governor of the southern state of Oruzgan and a key adviser to the President, and Ahmad Wali Karzai, the President's half-brother and the man regarded as the most powerful politician in Afghanistan's south.
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