Taliban authorities in Afghanistan said Thursday a bomb blast had ripped through the office of a provincial governor, killing him and two others.
The early morning attack in Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of the northern Balkh province, wounded at least seven people, according to local hospital officials.
Provincial police officials said that a man wearing a suicide vest blew himself up on the second floor of the building housing the office of the slain governor, Mohammad Dawood Muzamil.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the high-profile deadly bombing.
Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on Twitter confirmed the death of Muzamil, saying he was "martyred in an explosion by the enemies of Islam." Mujahid said in his Pashto language tweet that an investigation into the incident was underway.
Muzamil is the second-most senior Taliban leader killed since the hardline group retook control of Afghanistan in 2021 as the United States and NATO troops left the country after two decades of war.
Last December, a car bombing killed the Taliban police chief of northeastern Badakhshan province. That attack was claimed by the Islamic State terror group's Afghan affiliate, known as Islamic State-Khorasan.
The militant group, often referred to as Daesh or IS-K, has recently intensified attacks in Afghanistan. The violence has killed hundreds of people, including minority Shiite community members and Taliban officials as well as clerics.
Muzamil had served as the governor of the eastern Nangarhar province and supervised operations against IS-K operatives there before moving to Balkh last year.
ISIS-K launched its extremist activities in war-torn Afghanistan in 2015 from bases in Nangarhar and has since expanded the violence to other provinces.
The Taliban have stepped up counterterrorism operations against IS-K operatives in recent weeks, killing dozens of them.
The United States sees IS-K as a "dangerous" affiliate of Islamic State and remains skeptical about the effectiveness of Taliban counterterrorism operations against the group.
The U.S. Intelligence Community, in its annual threat assessment has warned IS-K will maintain its campaign against the Taliban and religious minorities with deadly repercussions for Afghan civilians.
"ISIS-Khorasan almost certainly retains the intent to conduct operations in the West and will continue efforts to attack outside Afghanistan,” noted the assessment released on Wednesday, using an acronym for the Islamic State group’s Afghan branch.
