A roadside bomb killed an Afghan intelligence official and three bodyguards in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, officials said.
The blast in Nadali district of Helmand province killed Mohammad Ali Borak, a local official of the National Security Administration, said Asadullah Sherzad, head of national security in the province.
“It was a remote-controlled bomb,” Sherzad told Reuters. He blamed Taliban guerrillas.
The attack was the latest in a spate on insurgent violence to hit Helmand. On Friday, Taliban gunmen killed the chief government official in Sangin district, hours after police killed eight guerrillas and arrested 10 in a two-hour battle.
Saturday’s bloodshed came as President Bush was in neighboring Pakistan discussing ways to improve cooperation in the U.S.-led war on terrorism.
Bush made a brief stop in Afghanistan on Wednesday and ahead of his visit the Afghan government repeatedly complained that Taliban guerrillas had been able to operate from Pakistan.
U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001 for refusing to give up Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
Four years on, bin Laden remains at large and an intensified insurgency has claimed more than 1,500 lives since the start of last year.
