A well-known Afghan politician and at least 20 other people were killed on Saturday in a suicide attack in the northern province of Samangan, local police said.
Ahmad Khan Samangani was attending the wedding party of his daughter in Aybak, the provincial capital, when the blast occurred.
The attacker, posing as a guest, greeted Samangani before detonating his explosives, a witness said.
Samangani, an ethnic Uzbek, was a key military commander and a Member of Parliament.
He was known as a supporter of President Hamid Karzai and a rival of Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former regional civil war commander in northern Afghanistan and currently one of the country’s most prominent Uzbek politicians.
In addition to those killed, more than 40 other people were wounded in the attack, police said.
Ghulam Mohammad Khan, the criminal director of the provincial police, told Associated Press that the dead included a senior Afghan National Army commander and the provincial intelligence chief.
A senior police commander related to Samangani was among those injured.
The attack comes a day after a prominent female Afghan politician was killed in a bomb attack in eastern Laghman province.
The politician, Hanifa Safi, was the provincial head of the Afghan ministry of women’s affairs and was known as a leading advocate of fair treatment for women.
