Kabul - The governor of the southern Afghan province of Kandahar said Thursday that he was being sacked by the central government. General Rahmatullah Raoufi, who had served as army commander in the southern region before he was appointed as governor, had replaced powerful and controversial former governor Assadullah Khalid in August.
Khalid had disagreements with NATO-led Canadian commanders in the province and Canadian government officials earlier this year had asked President Hamid Karzai to remove him.
"I was told today that I am sacked and I should end my job in Kandahar," Raoufi told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
"The thing is that I could not work in this province anymore because of another (group of) powerful people," he said, but did not elaborate.
Local media said that Raoufi recently had an argument with Karzai's half-brother, Wali Karzai, who heads Kandahar's provincial council.
Kandahar, which was the former headquarters for Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar during their regime in 1996 to 2001, is the hub for the Taliban-led insurgency.
Meanwhile, in the south-eastern province of Khost, a suicide bomber attacked the office of the intelligence service department on Thursday morning, killing two police officers and wounding nine others including intelligence agents, officials said.
A suicide bomber driving a vehicle packed with explosives detonated his car at the entrance of the building, killing one policeman and wounding eight others, Tahir Khan Sabarai, provincial deputy governor, said.
But a police official, who did not want to be named, said that two police officers were killed and nine others, including intelligence agents, were wounded.
The official said that a second car parked in front of the building was remotely detonated and then "eight militants in police and army uniforms stormed the intelligence building."
The police official could not give more details other than saying that an operation was ongoing to "kill or arrest the attackers."
No group took responsibility for Thursday's attacks, but the Taliban, who were driven from power in late 2001, have recently relied heavily on suicide and roadside attacks as part of their war against the Afghan and some 65,000 international forces.
More than 100 suicide attacks have been carried out by the militants since the beginning of this year.
