Afghan lawmaker is gunned down in Kabul

An Afghan lawmaker who oversaw the destruction of two massive 1,500-year-old Buddha statues in March 2001 was gunned down here on his way to Friday prayers, police said.

Mawlawi Mohammed Islam Mohammedi was the former Taliban regime’s governor of Bamian province when the 5th century Buddha statues carved from the living rock were blasted with dynamite and artillery.

A gunman dressed as a construction worker shot and killed Mohammedi and wounded one of his two bodyguards with an AK-47 assault rifle before fleeing, said Zulmai Khan, Kabul’s deputy police chief. The attacker’s motive was unknown.

Mohammedi was elected in 2005 to represent the northern province of Samangan in Afghanistan’s parliament. He had said he could not be held responsible for the destruction of the world-famous landmarks, which the Taliban said it considered idolatrous and anti-Muslim.

The slaying came a day after a NATO airstrike destroyed a Taliban command post in southern Helmand province. The alliance said a senior militant leader was killed but did not identify him.

NATO’s commander in Afghanistan said Friday that a battalion of U.S. troops would be sent to the insurgency-plagued south. Gen. David Richards said a battalion with the 10th Mountain Division would be dispatched to Kandahar to serve as a reserve force. A battalion can include as many as 1,200 troops.

Also on Friday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asked allies to intensify their efforts to keep the Taliban from retaking parts of Afghanistan.

Rice, in Brussels, made her appeal a day after the Bush administration said it would ask Congress for $10.6 billion to help the Afghan government.

The administration wants North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies to increase contributions of money, troops and other support for the unsteady democracy in Afghanistan. It also is working to dispel European suspicion that the United States is too busy in Iraq to pay attention to the Afghan fight.