Ex-Afghan PM shot dead

KABUL: A lawmaker who served as prime minister during Afghanistan’s civil war was shot and killed outside him home in Kabul on Wednesday.

Abdul Saboor Farid, a member of Afghanistan’s upper house of parliament, was prime minister for one month in 1992 when the country plunged into a bitter civil war following the defeat of the Soviet army by the U.S.-backed mujahedeen fighters.

He was killed outside his house in northern Kabul, said Gen. Zulmay Khan, Kabul province’s deputy police chief.

Farid was representative of Kapisa. He was a senior mujahedeen commander in the area, close to a renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who now leads part of the insurgency against President Hamid Karzai and his foreign backers. “I cannot believe that he was killed,” said his son Tayad Farid. “The tyrants opened fire from a Toyota Corolla,” he said.

Nafat Gul, also a lawmaker in the upper house of the parliament, condemned the shooting. “Afghanistan’s government should be able to protect its lawmakers,” Gul said.

Authorities said that they were investigating the possible motives for the shooting, but nobody was arrested.