A group of armed men have killed a senior adviser to the Afghan president and a member of the parliament in a daring attack in the capital, Kabul.
Initial reports about the fate of Jan Mohammad Khan, the Hamid Karzai aide, and Mohammad Hashim Watanwal, the parliamentarian, were conflicting, but a senior government official confirmed to Al Jazeera that both men had been killed in Sunday's assault.
Khan, a former governor of Uruzgan, was considered an important adviser to Karzai. After a stint as the chief administrator of the southern province that was marred by controversy and corruption, he was sacked in 2006 and moved to Kabul as one in Karzai's long list of advisers.
Watanwal, a former member of the communist regime, was elected to the Afghan parliament in 2005. He had reportedly returned to the country after spending the Taliban years abroad in Pakistan and the West.
"This is yet another personal blow to president Karzai as he was from the same tribe as the president, Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting from Kabul, said. Khan and Wantanwal are the latest in the long list of high-level Afghan officials assassinated.
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