KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A gunman riding a motorcycle killed a woman who works for the Afghan government in a drive-by shooting outside of her home in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, officials and family members said.
The assailant sped up on a motorcycle and shot Rabia Sadat twice as she was getting into her car to go to work in Kandahar city Tuesday morning, said her father, Sayed Hussein Sadat.
Zalmai Ayubi, a spokesman for Kabul's provincial government, said Sadat was killed in the shooting while her driver was wounded. Sadat worked for the province's work and social affairs department, he said.
Ayubi said it was not clear why Sadat was killed, and her father said he did not know of any threats against his daughter. Insurgents regularly target government workers or women who attend school or work in offices.
It was the second attack in Kandahar city -- the former Taliban stronghold and the south's major urban hub -- in as many days. On Monday night, militants attacked a fuel tanker depot outside the main international military base in southern Afghanistan, killing four security guards.
In that attack, the assailants set off explosives that were packed in a minibus at the entrance of a compound outside of Kandahar Air Field -- the base of NATO and U.S. operations in the south.
The compound is used by fuel tankers that supply NATO bases, said Ahmadullah Niaz, who works in the compound.
NATO, meanwhile, said that one of its cargo planes collided with a surveillance drone in eastern Afghanistan on Monday. The C-130 plane made an emergency landing at a nearby base but was only lightly damaged and no one aboard was injured, said Italian army Capt. Pietro D'Angelo, a spokesman for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The drone, an RQ-7 Shadow, went down and has not been located yet, he said. Pietro said they were searching for the craft, which was not carrying weapons when it collided with the plane.
And in Kunar province, also in the east, a government official said 12 civilians were wounded when NATO fired on a village in an effort to repel an insurgent attack.
The heavy weapons fired from a NATO base hit houses in Qalawal village and injured civilians, including women and children, said Wasifullah Wasify, a spokesman for the provincial government. The director of the hospital in the provincial capital of Asadabad, Dr. Mohammad Farooq Sahak, said that the injuries were not life-threatening but that about six of those wounded would need several days of care before they could be released.
