[ad_1]
A bomb placed under a couch killed four Afghans, including an election candidate, on Wednesday, officials said, as deadly violence intensified ahead of the October 20 parliamentary election.
The Taliban quickly asserted responsibility for the attack, bringing to at least 10 the number of candidates killed during the election campaign.
Abdul Jabar Qahraman had met supporters in his campaign office in the southern Helmand province – a Taliban stronghold – when a bomb hidden under a sofa exploded, AFP spokesman told AFP. provincial governor, Omar Zhwak.
Qahraman was one of four people killed by the blast in the capital of Lashkar Gah province, Interior Minister Wais Ahmad Barmak told reporters. Seven others were injured and three suspects were arrested, he added.
President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack on Qahraman, which he had sent to Helmand in 2016 as an envoy to help defeat the Taliban. Qahraman subsequently resigned.
In another election violence, gunmen on Wednesday ambushed a convoy of a candidate in Logar province near Kabul, province spokesman Shamshad Laraway said.
And later, an improvised explosive device exploded near the campaign rally of another candidate in Pule Alam, capital of Logar province, said Laraway.
There were no casualties in both attacks.
The official campaign for the vote ends at midnight on Wednesday.
Most of the 10 candidates who died in the run-up to the elections were murdered during targeted assassinations.
Qahraman is the second candidate killed in Lashkar Gah this month, after Saleh Mohammad Asikzai was among the eight people killed in a suicide bombing last week.
This incident came a day after the Taliban warned the candidates to withdraw from the legislative elections, which the group had pledged to attack.
The Taliban issued a new warning on Wednesday calling for "education workers" to prevent the transformation of schools into polling stations and to prevent teachers and students from participating as election workers.
Violence rose before the long-delayed vote, with hundreds of people having been killed or injured during attacks related to polling stations across the country.
Preparations for the vote have been catastrophic and organizers are still struggling to distribute election materials to more than 5,000 polling centers.
The election of the lower house of parliament is seen as a dry run for the presidential vote scheduled for April and the organizers said it would not be deferred further.
This is also seen as a milestone in the perspective of the UN meeting in Geneva in November, where Afghanistan will be put under pressure to advance "democratic processes".
Nearly nine million people have registered to vote, but observers expect far fewer spectators due to the threat of militant attacks and expectations of widespread fraud.
More than 50,000 already overstretched Afghan security forces are deployed to protect polling stations on polling day.
strs-emh-us-amj / ds / jta
A total of 10 candidates were killed during the campaign for the delayed parliamentary elections in Afghanistan
Map of Afghanistan showing the severity of the conflict in 2017, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
