Mawlawi Pir Agha, General Commander of the Taliban’s Special Units in Ghazni province in central Afghanistan, who had recently returned from the pilgrimage, is reported to have died and three of his bodyguards to have been wounded as a result of the overturning of a vehicle carrying Taliban government forces.
Local Ghazni provincial sources say that the recently returned Taliban commander died in a car accident in the province, leaving his three bodyguards gravely injured.
While confirming this information, Hafiz Omar Ghaznavi, the Taliban governor’s spokesman, stated that the incident occurred on Monday night in Kotal-e-Rawza, in Ghazni province, on the Kabul-Kandahar route.
The Taliban’s spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, said that commander Pir Agha, who had just performed the Hajj, had the accident while traveling from Kabul to the province of Ghazni.
While Kotal-e-Rawza is said to be a dangerous route, the driver’s negligence is to blame for this occurrence, according to Taliban officials.
Taliban officials were among the 13,000 pilgrims who traveled to Saudi Arabia to perform the pilgrimage this year; the first batch of the pilgrims left on June 12.
