KANDAHAR: An 18-year-old woman working for the Afghan government was killed in Kandahar on Tuesday, hours after suicide bombers targeted a nearby NATO fuel depot, killing four security guards.
Rabia Sadat, who worked on rural development, was shot dead as she left home in the southern city of Kandahar to go to work at around 8:00 am (0330 GMT), provincial spokesman Zalmai Ayoubi said.
She had been assigned to a Western-funded project which aims to boost the quality of life in Afghanistan's deprived villages by improving irrigation and the provision of drinking water.
The Taliban did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack. But they frequently target government employees in a 10-year insurgency against US-led foreign forces and President Hamid Karzai's Western-backed government.
Kandahar is the largest city in southern Afghanistan, the Taliban's birthplace and the traditional heart of the insurgency.
In recent weeks, the city's mayor and Karzai's powerful brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, have both been assassinated in Kandahar.
The attacks have raised fears about a power vacuum in the south as NATO troops start withdrawing from Afghanistan under a tight timetable set to repatriate all foreign combat troops by the end of 2014.
The government blamed Tuesday's killing on "enemies of Afghanistan", a phrase often used by officials to refer to insurgents.
Before the 2001 US-led invasion ousted them from power, the Taliban banned women from attending school or working outside the home under their interpretation of Islamic law.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, several thousand people including Afghan lawmakers took to the streets of Kabul on Tuesday to protest against the latest twist in a long-running row over vote fraud in last year's parliamentary elections.
President Hamid Karzai last week ordered the Independent Election Commission (IEC) to resolve the long-standing dispute and it is expected to announce within days how many members of parliament will be kicked out.
The protestors were fiercely opposed to any change in the results as they stand.
Two NATO troops also died of "non-battle related" injuries in the south and east of Afghanistan, the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.
The killing of Sadat was the latest attack within hours in the Kandahar area after three suicide bombers struck at a fuel depot for foreign forces, killing four security guards near the city late Monday.
The facility belongs to logistics company Supreme and is near the sprawling Kandahar airfield where thousands of foreign troops are based and which acts as a hub for coalition military operations across south Afghanistan.
The police commander for southern Afghanistan, General Salem Ihsas, said four Afghan guards working for a private security firm were killed in the assault at around 9:00 pm.
He said eight other guards -- three from Nepal and five from Afghanistan -- were wounded when two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the compound gates. A third bomber was shot dead in the ensuing gun battle.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said the militant group was behind the attack in a telephone call from an undisclosed location.
Insurgents frequently target both foreign and Afghan organisations which work with the 140,000-strong foreign military in Afghanistan as well as fuel convoys and tankers supplying the international force.
ISAF relies on contractors to provide a wide range of services in Afghanistan, particularly at large hub bases such as Kandahar.
Supreme's website says it provides services to foreign military including fuel, catering, cargo transportation and logistics.
The company, which is headquartered in Amsterdam, was not immediately reachable for comment.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011
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