Security forces shot and killed an alleged accomplice of the suicide bomber as he was fleeing the scene on a motorbike, said Gen. Rahmatullah Raufi, the local army chief. A detonator was found in one of his pockets.

The attack happened on a main road in Maywand district, Kandahar province, when the convoy of coalition and Afghan forces was passing. None of the troops in the convoy was believed to have been hurt, he said.

Sayed Sadeq, the speaker of northern Tahhar province's governing assembly, died in hospital after receiving multiple gunshots to his body after an assailant broke into his home Saturday, said Ghulam Hazarat, the deputy local police chief.

He said it was not clear who was behind the killing and that an investigation had been launched.

Sadeq was well respected in the mountainous region and was a supporter of the country's US-backed central government.

Before the Taliban were ousted in late 2001, he was a mid-ranking commander in a militia run by renegade former premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is now wanted as a terrorist by the United States.

Several district government chiefs and local police commanders have been killed in recent weeks, most in attacks blamed on the Taliban.