Another Taliban hit on Karzai's leadership circle. The Mayor of Kandahar City, Karzai's political base, was assassinated by a suicide bomber.

Reuters:

A suicide bomber killed the mayor of Afghanistan's Kandahar city on Wednesday, two weeks after the assassination of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother in the same city created a power vacuum in the country's turbulent south.

The death of Mayor Ghulam Haidar Hamidi is the latest in a string of assassinations of Karzai allies.

While it is unclear if all were the work of insurgents, the killings have stoked instability as foreign troops begin withdrawing ahead of Afghan forces taking full security control by the end of 2014.

Hamidi, 65, was killed and another person wounded when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives in a corridor near Hamidi's office, said Zalmay Ayoubi, the spokesman for the Kandahar provincial governor.

"It appears the bomber was carrying the bomb in his turban," Ayoubi said.

While there appeared there could be other motivations for the killing (the city destroyed a couple of buildings, killing a woman and two children in the process), a revenge murderer probably wouldn't choose suicide to carry out the act. Also, the turban gambit was used after the funeral of Wali Karzai when a suicide bomber killed 5 mourners. Taliban claimed responsibility for that outrage.

Karzai is losing allies in a vital part of the country and few are stepping forward to replace them.