UPDATE1 -- Bomber hits Governor's house in northern Afghanistan, at least 6 dead

UPDATE1 -- Bomber hits Governor's house in northern Afghanistan, at least 6 dead

2011-05-28 22:36:20 GMT+7 (ICT)

TALOQAN, AFGHANISTAN (BNO NEWS) -- A suicide bomber hit a meeting at a governor's house in northern Afghanistan on late Saturday afternoon, Afghan and NATO officials said, killing at least six people including two top officials.

The attack happened at around 4.45 p.m. local time during a high-profile meeting at the Governor's Palace in Taloqan, the capital of Takhar province. Witnesses reported seeing smoke coming from the building and said there were a number of fatalities.

Among the fatalities is Pamir police zone commander Gen. Daud Daud, who was a former Deputy Interior Minister for Counter Narcotics, and provincial police chief Brig. Gen. Shah Jehan Noori. Daud was also a former bodyguard of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the man who led the Northern Alliance and was killed in an al-Qaeda suicide bombing two days before the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said a number of their service members as well as Afghan soldiers were also killed and injured. "We have ISAF fatalities and a number of injured," said Tim James, a spokesman for the multinational force.

James said German Major General Markus Kneip, the commander of ISAF's Regional Command North, was in the building and survived the attack. He could not say how many ISAF service members were killed and injured.

But a spokesman for the provincial governor told the German Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) news agency that three German soldiers were among those killed. "Three Germans, who were part of delegation that attended the security meeting, were killed," the spokesman told DPA.

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