Afghan journalist killed in blast

KHOST/AFGHANISTAN: A bomb ripped through a military vehicle in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing an Afghan journalist and injuring three military personnel, an intelligence official said.   

The journalist had been standing on a road in eastern Khost province when a remotely detonated bomb exploded near a military vehicle, he said.   

The blast wounded three other people, including the son of a commander of a militia unit helping security forces track down Taliban militants, Khost's intelligence director Sadeq Tarakhil told reporters.   

"One journalist who was standing nearby was killed, three others were injured - (commander Khyal Baz) Sherzai's son was among them," he said.

The journalist, identified only as Maiwand, worked for a local radio station called Da Solah Pigham (The Message of Peace). Authorities blamed the attack on the "enemies of Afghanistan's stability," a term often used to refer to militants loyal to the Taliban regime ousted in 2001 and who are trying to topple the new government.   

Sherzai confirmed the bombing in Do Saraka district, just outside the provincial capital Khost, but did not say who might have been behind it.   

"They attacked my car - perhaps I was the target," he said. He had not been in the vehicle at the time.   

Sherzai commands one of the several American-funded militia units that are helping Afghan security forces and a nearly 20,000-strong US-led coalition force hunt down Taliban insurgents and their allies in southern and eastern Afghanistan.   

The Taliban, who gained control of most of Afghanistan in 1996 after years of civil war, were removed from power in a US-led campaign launched after they did not hand over their ally Osama bin Laden, suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.