The chief prosecutor of the Afghan National Directorate of Security has been assassinated in a car-bomb attack.
Sayed Mahmud Agha was killed on March 6 when the convoy he was traveling in to the southern city of Lashkargah was targeted by a suicide bomber driving a car filled with explosives, according to the provincial council chief for Helmand Province, Attaullah Afghan.
One of Agha's bodyguards was killed and eight others, including two passersby, were injured.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack.
There has been a rising wave of killings targeting journalists, civil society activists, and officials across Afghanistan in recent months amid ongoing peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban negotiators in Qatar.
Most of the targeted killings have gone unclaimed. The Taliban has denied involvement in many cases. But Afghan and U.S. officials have blamed the militants.
Rights groups say the killings are intended to silence and intimidate independent voices and civil society in Afghanistan, which has made inroads on women’s rights and free speech since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that toppled the fundamentalist Taliban regime.
