A senior women's affairs official who has criticised the Taleban's treatment of women was shot dead outside her home in southern Afghanistan today.

Safia Ama Jan was getting into a car outside her house in the city of Kandahar when two gunmen on motorcycles opened fire.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, although Taleban insurgents have killed numerous government officials as part of their war against the Government and foreign forces supporting it.

Mrs Ama Jan had worked as the provincial director of Afghanistan's Ministry of Women's Affairs since the Taleban were overthrown five years ago. She may have been targeted for her opposition to the Islamic extremists' attempts to limit women's involvement in politics and education.

As a well known women rights campaigner, she was aware that she was vulnerable to attack and had asked for official transport and personal bodyguards. The Afghan Government rejected these requests. It is thought that she was getting into a taxi on her way to work when she was killed.

Her nephew, who gave his name only as Farhad, said that she had died on the spot. He declined to speculate on the identity of the gunmen or motivation for the attack, except to say: "We had no personal enmity with anyone."

She was wearing a burqa when she was shot.

A security official said no arrests had been made and an investigation had been launched.

The United Nations condemned the killing. Aleem Siddique, from the UN's assistance mission in Afghanistan, said: "UNAMA is appalled by this senseless murder of a woman who was simply working to ensure that all Afghan women play a full and equal part in the future of Afghanistan."

Kandahar was the Taliban’s main bastion of support during the 1990s when the militia emerged from Islamic schools on the Pakistani border and swept to power in Kabul. The province is caught up in an increasingly vicious Taleban insurgency.

In another outburst of violence, police in the eastern town of Khost said two suicide bombers had been killed in a blast. Residents said that a US military convoy had been attacked, but initially there was no information about casualties among the troops.

And earlier this month, a suicide bomber killed the governor of Paktia in eastern Afghanistan. The Taleban said it carried out the attack on Abdul Hakim Taniwal.

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