ISLAMABAD: A bomb attack killed the mayor of an Afghan provincial capital on Thursday, hospital and municipality sources told AFP, weeks after another official was shot dead in the same region.

Habib-ur-Rahman Mansour, mayor of Faizabad, was killed after his vehicle was targeted by a bomb, a nurse at the Badakhshan provincial hospital told AFP on condition of anonymity.

An employee at the city's municipality, who also requested anonymity for security reasons, said the mayor "was killed by a bomb planted" near their workplace.

The National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying its fighters targeted Mansour’s vehicle around 100 meters from the provincial government building.

The bombing comes less than three weeks after the head of the information and culture department in Badakhshan, Zabihullah Amiri, was shot dead while en route to Faizabad.

The branch of the Islamic State group in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Islamic State-Khorasan, said it had carried out that attack.

Remote Badakhshan has become an important mining hub under the Taliban authorities, which have expanded the sector since returning to power five years ago.

There were clashes in the province in May when security forces sought to destroy opium poppy fields, with two people, including a teenager, killed.

Taliban officials have vowed to restore security to Afghanistan, but there have been sporadic attacks since 2021.

The regional IS branch has claimed some of them, including an explosion at a Chinese restaurant in central Kabul that killed at least seven people in January.

The jihadist group also claimed responsibility for a December 2024 suicide bombing in Kabul that killed former refugees minister Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani.

With additional inputs from AFP.

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Afghanistan bomb attack kills mayor: Hospital, municipality sources

Afghanistan bomb attack kills mayor: Hospital, municipality sources