targeted by a suicide bomber who got into the municipality compound in Kandahar City with explosives concealed under his turban. The technique was first used earlier this month in a mosque in the city during a memorial service for Ahmed Wali Karzai, a regional strongman and half-brother of the president.
The death comes weeks after the killing in their homes of two powerful politicians in the south: Ahmed Wali Karzai and Jan Mohammad Khan, an ally of the Karzai family and a key figure in neighbouring Uruzgan province. In April, Kandahar's police chief was killed by a suicide bomber who entered polic
Hamidi, an Afghan-American who worked as an accountant in the US for 20 years, was nowhere near as politically important as Ahmed Wali Karzai. Although Karzai held an elected position as the head of the provincial council, he was a powerbroker who wielded enormous power through his control of the wa
institutions and government officials against such informal "malign actors". Hamidi held an official position but was also very much part of the Karzai family network in the south, to which he owed his job. It had been rumoured that he might take the lead role in the province after the killing of Ahmed Wali.
