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KABUL: A controversial former Afghan warlord who is now a lawmaker escaped unhurt after a roadside bomb ripped through his convoy on Friday, killing five of his bodyguards, police said.
It was not clear who was behind the attack on Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayaf, a controversial warlord during Afghanistan civil war in 1990s.
"A bomb planted on the side of the road was detonated as his (Sayaf's) convoy passed by," district police Chief Abdul Razaq Quraishi told AFP.
"Five of his bodyguards were killed," he said, adding that the blast missed the vehicle carrying Sayaf, now a member of Afghanistan's parliament. Another guard was wounded, he said.
The interior ministry confirmed the blast, but gave no more information.
The bombing came one day after Afghan President Hamid Karzai was sworn in for a second five-year term in office, pledging to try to bring peace to the nation and take over security from foreign forces in five years.
Sayaf supported Karzai during Afghanistan's fraud-tainted August 20 presidential election, which has meant that many Afghans see the president's second mandate as illegitimate.
Sayaf, now a close ally of Karzai, led a private militia against rival groups during Afghanistan's 1992-1996 civil war which killed tens of thousands of civilians and destroyed much of Kabul.
The ethnic-Pashtun strongman supported the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance between 1996 and 2001 until a US-led invasion toppled the Islamist regime in Kabul. Sayaf won a seat in the 2005 parliamentary election.
Afghan and international rights groups accuse Sayaf of atrocities during the civil war.
The US-backed Karzai is under pressure from his Western allies to tackle corruption and get rid of warlords from his government.
- AFP/so
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