Peace negotiator, NATO troops killed in Afghanistan

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- An Afghan official involved in setting up peace talks with the Taliban was gunned down in Kabul on Sunday as Afghanistan announced plans to take control of security over more of its territory. Gunmen killed Moulavi Arsala Rahmani while he was on his way to work Sunday morning, the Afghan interior ministry said.

Rahmani was a senator and Cabinet minister in the former Taliban government when the Islamic militia ruled most of the country, but in recent years had been a senior member of the High Peace Council. Rahmani played a key role in efforts to bring Taliban leaders to the negotiation table. Authorities were searching for the attackers, the interior ministry said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the killing, praising Rahmani as a warrior-turned-politician "and a great pacifist." "Enemies of Afghanistan must know that every Afghan wants peace and progress in their country and, thus Mawlavi Arsala was not alone in this journey," Karzai said in a statement. The Taliban, which has been fighting government forces and U.S.-led NATO troops for more than a decade, announced recently that peace council members would be targets of its spring offensive.

But Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a text message Sunday that the group did not kill Rahmani. He died the same day that Afghanistan released a new list of areas in which responsibility for security will be transferred from U.S. and allied troops to Afghan forces. Those include the city of Kandahar, the Taliban's historical seat of power and until recently one of its strongholds.

 The rest of the list includes other volatile areas, including about half of the insurgent hotbed of Nurestan province, a third of violent Paktika province's districts and all of Uruzgan province, where departing Australian forces are active. The plan means Afghan officials will have control over more than 75% of their own territory, Gen. John Allen, the commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said Sunday. And NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said once the move is implemented, "transition will have begun in every one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, including every provincial capital."

"This is thanks to the courage and determination of the Afghan people, the Afghan security forces and ISAF, and it is a result of the progress we have already made," Rasmussen said in a statement. "Together, we are moving steadily closer to our shared goal: to see the Afghan forces fully in charge of their country's security by the end of 2014."

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