Bid on life denied

KABUL: Afghan authorities said on Sunday that an incident in which the defence minister’s vehicle was fired on was not an assassination attempt. Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak had just left Kabul airport on Saturday by helicopter when his empty car was fired on by four men in combat uniform. Ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi said the vehicle was caught in crossfire between two groups of feuding Afghan soldiers. “At the begining we thought it was an attempt on the minister’s life,” Azimi said. But further investigations revealed it was an accident, he said. — AFP

Pilot killed in crash

MULTAN: A Pakistan air force fighter jet crashed on Sunday in mountains southwest of the capital during an exercise, killing the pilot, the air force said. The French-made Mirage jet went down near Mianwali, a town about 230 km southwest of Islamabad, the air force said in a statement. The pilot, identified only as Wing Commander Rizwanullah, was fatally injured, the statement said, without speculating why the jet crashed. Pakistan’s Geo television reported that it may have gone down due to bad weather. Local police official Aslam Khan Ghauri said the plane’s wreckage waw found on a hill top near Mianwali. It was the second Mirage fighter to crash in a month in Pakistan. In August, another jet went down near the southern town of Badin and the pilot ejected safely. A technical problem was cited as the cause. — AP

Buddhist shot dead

BANGKOK: A cattle salesman in Thailand’s restive south has been shot dead, police said on Sunday, in the latest killing in more than 20 months of unrest along the Malaysian border. Chai Vejprasit, a 61-year-old Buddhist, was killed while working with his cattle in Pattani province, police Lieutenant Colonel Pattawee Nakchoke told AFP. “Police are investigating the cause of the shooting,” Pattawee said. The shooting came a day after two men were found slashed to death in separate attacks in nearby Narathiwat province. — AFP

Plane skids off runway

BANGKOK: An airplane owned by troubled Phuket Air skidded off a runway as it tried to land on Sunday during a storm in northern Thailand, an airline employee said. No one was hurt. The decades-old YS11 aircraft flying from Bangkok plunged into a ditch at the Mae Sot airport on the border with Myanmar, damaging one of its two propellers, the employee said on condition of anonymity according to company policy. — AP