Taliban kill Turkish engineer

Taliban gunmen shot dead a Turkish engineer in Afghanistan yesterday in the second attack in a week on foreigners working on a road project in the west of the country, a provincial governor said.

In a separate attack, Taliban gunmen on motorbikes raided a police post outside a jail in the southern city of Kandahar, wounding up to five of the men, the Kandahar provincial governor said. The Turkish engineer was travelling with three police guards in an area on the border of Farah and Nimroz provinces when Taliban in a vehicle forced them to stop, said the governor of Nimroz, Ghulam Dastagir Azad.

"They pulled him out, shot him and burned his body," Mr Azad said of the Turk. They disarmed the three guards and let them go, he said. Mr Azad did not identify the engineer or his company. Officials at the Turkish embassy were not available for comment.

A roadside blast in the same area last week killed five people, including two foreigners working for a firm that provides security for road construction crews.