A former Communist general turned prominent politician has been killed by a Taliban bomb hidden in his sofa as he campaigned for this weekend's parliamentary election in Afghanistan.

Abdul Jabar Qahraman became the 10th election candidate to die ahead of Saturday's polls when the blast tore through his campaign office.

The Taliban took responsibility for the attack, which also killed three of Mr Qahraman's companions in the capital of Helmand province.

A Taliban statement said they had killed “a renowned communist".

The dead candidate had been a key figure in the dying days of Afghanistan's Soviet-backed government, holding military power in the south of the country until he fled into exile in 1993.

After the fall of the Taliban he return to Afghanistan and was elected as an MP, recently advising President Ashraf Ghani on security in the south of the country.