Afghan election candidateamong four killed in bomb attack

KANDAHAR: A bomb placed under a sofa killed four Afghans including an election candidate on Wednesday, officials said, as violence escalates ahead of the October 20 parliamentary ballot.

The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the attack, which takes the number of candidates killed so far during the campaign season to at least 10. Abdul Jabar Qahraman had been meeting with supporters in his campaign office in the southern province of Helmand — a Taliban stronghold — when a bomb hidden under a sofa exploded, provincial governor spokesman Omar Zhwak told AFP. Qahraman was among four people killed by the blast in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, interior minister Wais Ahmad Barmak told reporters. Another seven were wounded and three suspects have been arrested, he added. President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack on Qahraman, who he had sent to Helmand in 2016 as an envoy to help defeat the Taliban. Qahraman later resigned. In other poll-related violence, gunmen ambushed a candidate’s convoy in Logar province, near Kabul, on Wednesday, provincial governor spokesman Shamshad Laraway said. And later an improvised explosive device blew up near the campaign rally of another candidate in Logar provincial capital Pule Alam, Laraway said.