Gunmen kill high-ranking Taliban official in Afghanistan in rare targeted attack

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Gunmen killed a high-ranking local Taliban official in Afghanistan’s northwestern province of Badakhshan on Tuesday in a rare targeted killing in the country.

Two gunmen shot Zabihullah Amiri, Badakhshan’s director of information and culture, as he headed from a local district to the provincial capital Faizabad, the Information Ministry said in a statement.

“Immediately following the incident, security guards opened fire on the attackers; one attacker was killed and the second was captured,” the ministry said, adding that authorities were investigating the killing.

Targeted killings of high-ranking Taliban officials have been rare since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021 in the wake of the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces.

In December 2024, the country’s refugee minister, Khalil Haqqani, was killed in a suicide bombing in the capital Kabul. Haqqani was the uncle of Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, who leads a powerful network within the Taliban.

In June 2023, a car bomb in Faizabad killed Badakhshan’s deputy governor, Nisar Ahmad Ahmadi, as well as his driver. A regional affiliate of the Islamic State group, known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, claimed responsibility for the attack, as well as a suicide bombing that struck a memorial service for the deputy governor days later, killing at least 13 people.

In March 2023, the governor of the northern province of Balkh was killed in a bomb attack on the governor’s office.