An Afghan government minister, Obaidullah Obaid, survived a bomb attack on his motorcade in northern Afghanistan on Sunday, the second assault on a high-profile politician in two days, but two of his bodyguards were wounded, provincial officials said.
The Higher Education Minister was travelling from Baghlan to Kunduz province when one of the cars in his convoy hit a roadside bomb, Munshi Majid, the provincial governor of Baghlan who was in the same motorcade, told Reuters.
"The minister is safe," Munshi said. "Two policemen were wounded in the bomb attack," he said, adding that the bomb exploded on a highway outside Baghlan city.
Sunday's attack came a day after a suicide bomber blew himself up at a wedding reception in Samangan province, also in the north, killing a top Afghan official and 22 others.
On Friday, a car bomb killed a regional head of women's affairs in the east of the country.
Taliban hostage siege at lakeside Kabul hotel leaves at least 23 dead
Insurgents have spread their reach from their traditional strongholds in southern and eastern areas of Afghanistan to northern parts of the country once considered relatively safe.
Homemade bombs are by far the most lethal weapons deployed by insurgents and remain the single biggest killer of civilians, as well as foreign and Afghan troops.
Violence in Afghanistan is at its fiercest since U.S.-led Afghan troops overthrew the Taliban government in 2001.
Reuters contributed to this report.
More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:


"Insurgents have spread their reach from their traditional strongholds in southern and eastern areas of Afghanistan to northern parts of the country once considered relatively safe."
This is after 11 years NATO battles including surges, drone attacks with the biggest non NATO ally, Pakistan.
These Obaids, Karzais and so on will ultimately be killed or flee to Britain and other places like the Paki ungrateful and backstabbing criminal Gen Mush hiding in London.
They will loot as much as they can in between.
In Afghanistan, Pakis have backstabbed the US and NATO forces big time. Half of NATO forces deaths are due to ungrateful and backstabbing Pakis.
When the NATO forces were entering Kandahar in 2001, Pakis airlifted key al-Qaida, Taliban, ISI and others militants by back door from Kandahar.
This includes Mullah Omar, Osama and many including Paki Haqqani militant network leaders.
Hope people remember about Pakis sheltering Osama.
Drone attacks are not enough and to reduce NATO forces losses, Paki militant areas should be carpet bombed just like 1991 Iraqi war.
Either fight out all out battle attacking root, Paki militant areas or just get out. It is simply waste of time and resources to drag further the humiliations in Afghanistan.
After withdrawing, cut off all ties with Afghanistan and Pakistan. We don't need such ungrateful and backstabbing allies.
Oh, what a pity!
Well, "rollback" has worked somewhat better in our involvement with Afghanistan than it did in Korea in the early 50's, and Cuba in the early 60's. But after 10 years of action, it would appear to be a poor harvest of our peoples lives and resources.
We have also tried limited amounts of "detente" with the Taliban. That policy appears worthless as they seem to show they have little to gain by it.
So how about a try at the policy of "containment?' Quarantine the whole country. Put our resources around their border instead of all over their interior. Stop the poppy, stop the roadside bombings on us, stop the actions of terrorist's from spreading into the rest of the civilized world, stop it right at their borders. Let the Afghanistanis do what they want in their own country. Just don't let them do what they want amongst the 21st century peoples of the modern civilized nations of peace.
Let's face it.....it is PAKISTAN who is PROLONGING this war. They want to play "both ends against the middle." And, of course.....we are "in the middle" of this. They either CAN'T or WILL NOT contain these insurgents. Oh yes....they could if they wanted to, but they are AFRAID of the consequences.
Look what happened to the wife of the President, Sardari. And he knows this. When we leave.....it would be only a matter of time, before the Taliban take over the whole country......because PAKISTAN is PROTECTING them. Mark my words. This "take over" will happen after we leave. Yes.....the president of Afghanistan is taking all the money he can........that is......if he lives beyond 2014, or a little later.
It's a sad state of affairs. The Taliban has become a CANCER on AFGHANISTAN. There seems to be NO CURE for this cancer. If Afghanistan CAN'T win this war against the Taliban...NOW ...HOW CAN THEY WIN IT without us?
No......you can't go to the border and STOP all this POPPY business. They all "look alike" over there. Can't tell the good guys from the bad guys. This is VIETNAM.......all over again.
CAN'T WIN FOR LOSING. Our only hope is the DRONES......keep hitting the LEADERS.
Can't we all just...let em kill each other?
Maybe the major part of our aid should be unisex, one-size-fits-all suicide vests which we can distribute just like food aid. Then just let them blow each other to kingdom come. Of course, the vests should be made in the continental USA - we may as well get some domestic mileage out of our foreign aid.
And why can't we find out what the terrorists worship to the death, and destroy it each time they kill or maim anyone. And let the chips fall where they may.
are we still in this cesspool?
Yes, we are still there, fighting to bring a strong central government of freedom and democracy to a people that are perfectly happy with their decentralized tribal system of government.
They just don't seem to understand the concept of trusting their corrupt politicians in Kabal.
"......and I say to myself, what a wonderful world."
We should step back and let those people kill each other. Just stay here in the U.S. and keep our money here to protect our own property. It's about time those 'children' grow up and accept responsibility. We keep enabling them.
Those Cro-Magnon's have no concept of accepting and enjoying a democratic form of government. There has always been the abusive dictatorship and the opposing factions trying to grab control. These "people" would still be living in the Stone Age if the modern world hadn't discovered oil there. To waste our resources on the effort to civilize them is folly. When they did 9/11 we should have evaporated them and been done with it.
obama and his hired hit men have misses twice. could the hit men be as tired of obama as we are.?
The US is winning and security has IMPROVED VASTLY --- Snigger!
Afghanistan needs to work this mess out on their own. We need to leave, and stop throwing money into the mix.
How many more trillions of $$$ are we going to invest in foreign countries as the war hawks are now eyeing Syria and Iran as the next targets? Just think what this immense fortune could have done for the American people who have no sustainable health care system, failing infrastructure, extremely expensive education system and jobs that are now overseas. It all boils down to the fact that we're over there to make profits for the rich who've privatized these wars. Just think of Cheney and Halliburton. These people have always been fighting and will continue until the end of time.
I wish the Russians would give us a hand there. It seems to me they have a vested interest as well since they have problems with radical islamics as well. The two of us should be allies, not opponents. Romney is our best hope for this as Putin is well aware that Obama got the job for one reason only; skin tone !
We need a president that can find commonalities with them and work toward a common goal as a step in the right direction of putting the cold war into the past where it belongs.
Oh please. Where have you been?? The Russians tried to take over Afghanistan in a protracted war. It bankrupted Russia. And its bankrupting us.
HOO HAA!!! Got to hand it to these Taliban Boys!! They are kicking our collective NATO a$$es!! Bomb them..? So what!! Round them up and incarcerate them..? Laughable!! Hunt them down with kill teams..? Game on!! Drones..? Are you kidding..!! Negotiate..? YANKEE GO HOME!!
Turns out...
Sticks and Stones do break our bones..
These Taliban are tenacious and fierce.. something we could learn a lot from.
Once we manage to get our tails out from between our legs and finish licking our wounds.
I would rather the USA go after these groups and individuals with other means.We don't need young adults coming home in body bags because of a roadside bomb,which cost them nothing to build.We load our troops into these heavy armored trucks and send them on patrol,they sit and build bombs all day to blow up these convoys.More armor,bigger bombs.Try building a truck that will deflect a 500 LB bomb,very hard,and costly,for sure,in dollars and human lives.Drones are a step in the right direction,if we can develop cheaper missiles,we can call it the Head Hunter.I'm bad,but angry.Nobody wants to see anybody die,at least sane people think that way,they have no sole,kill anything that moves.
f
It looks like we are heading right back to square one. The Taliban will once again establish their brutal tyranny over Afghanistan. They will once again provide a safe haven for Muslim terrorists. And they will once again build their suicide bombs and plan yet more attacks on the civilized world.
It is, perhaps, small comfort to realize that the citizens of the country who refused to fully support the NATO forces will be back under the oppressive boot heel of the Muslim extremists. Maybe they will regret their cowardice.
I'm sure their women will.
If you look at the bigger pithure as to whats going on Britton and USA are trying to split the world in havft nodoult thy want the bigger peice thates why they are printing billions of dollers of money tring to buy friendship whith all them radical islamic mulim countries Mother shipton mentioned thes but she did not say who but it is obveous she also said that it would not work out. I think the present administation of USA is going to go down in history as just a printer of money P S my spelling reflects my age==coyote
kood ewe bee mor spesifik?
And these worthless backstabbing POS's are what our troops are dying and being maimed for??? Get out and get out now!