Afghan Presidential Candidate Abdullah Survives Assassination Attempt: Convoy Attacked by Suicide Bomber
With the second round of elections a week away, an attack on one of the candidates could be seen as an attempt to derail the elections and send Afghanistan's fragile stability into chaos.
On Friday, a suicide bomber attacked the convoy of presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah, hitting his car, according to The New York Times. A second explosion followed and hit another part of the convoy. Though Abdullah was not injured in the attack, six others perished.
According to Interior Minister spokesman Sediq Sediqqi, the bombing happened around noon when the candidate left a campaign rally at a hotel for another one. Police are trying to determine what the second explosion was, and they suspect it could have been a roadside bomb or a magnetic bomb attached to one of the cars.
Though the ministry said that all six killed were civilians, one of the people killed was one of Abdullah's bodyguards, according to other officials including Abdullah.
"We were together, and a bomb hit our car; the car is destroyed," Abdullah told supporters at a gathering shortly after the attack. "It didn't hurt us, but a number of my guards were wounded. The injuries aren't serious. The second bomb also exploded, but the first bomb directly hit our car. God, save us."
Despite not publicly claiming responsibility, officials believe the Taliban were behind the attack, The New York Times reported. Since the beginning of the election, they have tried to disrupt voting and scare people into staying at home. The death of a candidate could have been a more serious blow.
According to Reuters, Afghan law states that if a candidate dies during the elections, they must be restarted from scratch, which would me new candidates and would require the whole process to be set up again. Abdullah won the first round of voting but did not gain enough of the vote to avoid a run off with 45 percent. His opponent, former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, won 31.6 percent of the vote.
The second round of voting will happen on June 14.
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