Gunmen kill anti-Taliban cleric in Afghan south

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Monday (Reuters) Gunmen killed a prominent anti-Taliban cleric in Afghanistan's restive south on Sunday.

Mawlavi Abdullah Fayaz was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle as he was leaving his office in the heart of Kandahar city, witnesses said.

"I am deeply disturbed by this crime, which is an attack on Islam and on the Ulemas," President Hamid Karzai said in a statement, referring to Islamic scholars. He urged the authorities to catch the killers quickly.

Fayaz was head of a government-appointed scholars' council and last week he gave a stern speech at a gathering of clerics against the ousted Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar.

The Taliban first emerged in Kandahar in the early 1990s. The militia formed by religious students captured Kabul in 1996.

Forced from power in 2001 by U.S.-led troops, the Taliban and their Islamic militant allies are fighting an insurgency in the south and the east of the country.