JALALABAD, Nov 28: A one-time spokesman for the Taliban was shot dead with three family members by attackers wearing Afghan police uniforms, officials and relatives said on Friday.

Abdul Haq Daqiq, who was known as Doctor Mohammd Hanif while he was spokesman for the militant group around 2006, was killed in his home in the eastern province of Nangarhar at midnight Thursday, they said.

“Four people were killed, including Dr Hanif, and after investigations it will be known who killed him,” Chaprahar district governor Said Mohammed Pahlawan told AFP.

The other dead men were a cousin, brother-in-law and a nephew of Dr Hanif, he said.

The Taliban said they no longer had contact with Dr Hanif. The motive for the killing was unclear, as locals said it could have been linked to a family feud.

Around 25 men in police uniforms came to Dr Hanif’s home late on Thursday to conduct ‘a search’, a relative who gave his name as Najeeb, told AFP.

They then took the four men and shot them, sparing only an elderly man in the home, he said.

Dr Hanif, in his late 20s, was arrested in Nangarhar in January 2007 as he arrived in the country from Pakistan.

He was at the time one of the most prominent spokesmen of the Taliban group and regularly spoke to media from secret locations about the group’s engagements.

AMBUSH: Separately, Taliban killed 13 Afghan troops in an ambush of their convoy in northwestern Afghanistan, while Nato-led troops fired on militants inside Pakistan, officials said on Friday.

More than 300 militants attacked the convoy, which was transporting 47 vehicles for their units in Bala Murghab district of Badghis province late Thursday, said Naeem Khan, a border police official.

In the battle, 13 Afghan soldiers and policemen were killed and 11 others were wounded, said Abdul Ghani Sabri, the deputy provincial governor. Seven Taliban fighters were also killed, he said. Sixteen other Afghan troops were captured by the militants, Naeem Khan said.—Agencies