Afghan judge killed in Jalalabad, third court official in a month

An Afghan judge has been shot dead in an ambush in the eastern city of Jalalabad, police said, the third court official killed in less than a month.

Judge Hafizullah was attacked on Wednesday as he headed to work in a motor trishaw, said Farid Khan, spokesman for Nangarhar province’s police.

Gulzada Sangar, a doctor at Jalalabad public hospital, said Hafizullah had multiple bullet wounds.

The murder of Hafizullah, who like many Afghans goes by just one name, comes after armed fighters shot dead two female judges working for the Supreme Court in Kabul on January 17.

Several prominent Afghans – including judges, religious leaders, journalists, activists and doctors – have been assassinated in often brazen daytime attacks.

Targeted killings with remotely detonated bombs attached to vehicles, or drive-by shootings, have become favoured tactics of armed fighters, especially during the morning commute in big cities.

Earlier on Wednesday, a policeman was killed and three others wounded in Kabul by a bomb attached to their vehicle.

Four similar bomb blasts rocked the Afghan capital on Tuesday, including one that killed a prominent Muslim scholar.

The murder of Mohammad Atif was later claimed by ISIL (ISIS), according to the SITE monitoring group.

ISIL has claimed some of the targeted killings in the Afghan capital.

Separately, four security personnel were killed overnight by a car bomb at a military base in the restive southern province of Uruzgan, Governor Mohammad Omar Shirzad told reporters.

Deadly violence has surged across Afghanistan in recent months despite ongoing peace talks between the Taliban and the government.