2nd LD Writethru: Education official shot dead in Afghanistan

A district education official was shot and killed and three other officials wounded following a drive-by shooting in Afghanistan's northern province of Balkh on Tuesday, an official said.

"Noorullah Noori, head of the education department of Dawlat Abad district, was martyred and three district education officials wounded after gunmen riding a motorcycle spread bullets on them in Deh Naw village of the district Tuesday morning," district Governor Amir Shah told Xinhua.

The victims were travelling to office when the attack took place in the district, west of provincial capital Mazar-i-Sharif.

The killed along with the injured were shifted to the district hospital and the attackers fled the scene shortly after the firing, the source said.

More than 3,540 civilians were killed and over 7,450 injured as the violence spread in different places of the Asian country last year, according to a report released by the UN mission in the country in mid February.

The report has attributed 62 percent of the casualties to the Taliban and other insurgent groups, 17 percent to security forces while the rest 21 percent of civilian casualties were unattributed or caused by explosive remnants of war.

Out of the casualties, some 850 civilians were killed and 570 others were wounded by targeted killings in 2015. Enditem