The Taliban governor of Afghanistan's Balkh Province was killed in a blast at his office on March 9, officials said.
"Mohammad Dawood Muzammil, the governor of Balkh, has been killed in an explosion this morning," the province's Taliban police spokesman Asif Waziri told RFE/RL.
Two other people were killed in the attack and two were wounded, Waziri said. The cause of the explosion was not immediately known.
Some local media reports said more than 30 people were wounded by the blast and were taken to hospital for treatment.
The Taliban-led government's spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, tweeted that Muzammil was "martyred in an explosion by the enemies of Islam" and said that an investigation into the attack has been opened.
Muzammil is one of the highest-ranking Taliban officials to be killed since the group returned to power in August 2021.
No group has claimed responsibility so far, but after returning to power in 2021, the Taliban has been targeted by Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), an offshoot of the Islamic State that has emerged as the Taliban's main rival in the war-wracked country.
Muzammil was appointed governor of Balkh last year after holding the same position in the eastern Nangarhar Province, where he coordinated a crackdown on IS militants.
IS-K has staged several attacks in Afghanistan recently, including one in January in which a suicide bomber killed at least 10 people when he blew himself up near the Foreign Ministry in Kabul.
Last month, Taliban security forces claimed to have killed two senior IS-K members.
Qari Fateh, the regional IS-K intelligence and operations chief, was killed together with another IS-K member in a Kabul raid on February 27, the Taliban-led government said.
Another senior IS-K leader, Ijaz Amin Ahingar, was reportedly killed in a previous raid in Kabul.