Former Afghan President Assassinated by Turban Bomb

By CP News Briefs, Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani has been assassinated by a suicide bomber at his home on Tuesday, it has been reported.

The suicide bomber is reported to have hidden the explosives in his turban while pretending to visit the former president in the affluent neighborhood of the Kabul, the country’s capital. He reportedly embraced the former president and detonated the bomb.

According to Gen. Mohammad Zaher, head of Kabul police criminal investigation, two other people were injured, including another member of a government peace council, in which Rabbani was heading.

The panel was established last year to begin talks of reconciling with the Taliban.

It is not confirmed whether Rabbani’s four bodyguards were killed. The assassination comes at a time when current Afghan President Hamid Karzai is in New York to meet with President Obama while attending the U.N. General Assembly.

Karzai said, “This will not deter us from continuing down the path we have started.”

Rabbani served as the president of Afghanistan between 1992 and 1996. He was a prominent government figure, a leader of the High Peace Council, trying to negotiate reconciliation with the Taliban. His death is seen as a blow to the peace process in the country.