Afghanistan MP Killed at a Wedding

A well-known Afghan politician and around 20 other people have been killed in a suicide attack in the northern province of Samangan, police say.

Ahmad Khan Samangani, an ethnic Uzbek MP, was attending a wedding party for his daughter in the provincial capital, Aybak, when the blast happened.
The attacker, posing as a guest, embraced Mr Samangani before detonating his explosives, a witness said.
 

Ahmad Khan Samangani, a mujahideen commander in the 1990s civil war, became an MP in 2011

A Taliban spokesman denied involvement in the attack.
Ahmad Khan Samangani was a commander in the mujahideen militia during Afghanistan's civil war in the 1980s.
He was known as a supporter of President Hamid Karzai and a rival of Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum, a powerful civil war commander in the north and currently one of Afghanistan's most prominent Uzbek politicians, the BBC's Bilal Sarwary, in Kabul, says.
Mr Samangani became a member of parliament last year, replacing one of several sitting MPs expelled by the Independent Electoral Commission for alleged electoral fraud in the 2010 parliamentary election.

President Hamid Karzai has appointed a team to investigate the attack.

A statement from his office blamed "enemies of Afghanistan