Afghan peace negotiator is killed

20 September 2011 Last updated at 10:39 ET

Mr Rabbani (centre) had been overseeing efforts to persuade the Taliban to give up arms

The chairman of the Afghan High Peace Council, Burhanuddin Rabbani, has been killed in a bomb attack at his home in Kabul, officials told the BBC.

He was meeting two members of the Taliban at his home at the time of the blast, officials said. It is unclear if they were involved in the attack.

The High Peace Council leads Afghan efforts to negotiate with the Taliban.

Mr Rabbani is a former president of Afghanistan and also led the main political opposition in the country.

Unconfirmed reports say he may have been killed by a suicide attacker.

When the peace council was set up, Afghan President Hamid Karzai described it as the greatest hope for the Afghan people and called on the Taliban to seize the opportunity and help bring peace.

But many members of the council are former warlords who spent years fighting the Taliban and their inclusion led to doubts as to whether it could succeed in its mission.

Mr Rabbani recently spoke at a religious conference in Iran and called on Muslim scholars to speak out against suicide attacks.

He was ousted as president by the Taliban in 1996. After that he became the nominal head of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, made of mostly non-Pashtun ethnic groups.

When they swept back into Kabul, backed by US forces, and toppled the Taliban in 2001, he was still recognised by the UN as the official president of Afghanistan.

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