Unidentified gunmen killed 8ight civilians in an attack in Alisher district of Khost province on Friday evening.

According to the local reports, one of those killed was reportedly Abdul Wali Ikhlas, a Hezb-i-Islami member and former parliamentary candidate.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Hezb-e-Islami

Hezb-e-Islami, meaning Islamic Party, is an Islamist organization that was commonly known for fighting the Communist Government of Afghanistan and their close ally the Soviet Union. Founded and led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, it was established in Afghanistan in 1975. It grew out of the Muslim Youth organization, an Islamist organization founded in Kabul by students and teachers at Kabul University in 1969 to combat communism in Afghanistan.

Its membership was drawn from ethnic Pashtuns, and its ideology from the Muslim Brotherhood and Abul Ala Maududi's Jamaat-e-Islami. Another source describes it as having splintered away from Burhanuddin Rabbani's original Islamist party, Jamiat-e Islami, in 1976, after Hekmatyar found that group too moderate and willing to compromise with others.

Hezbi Islami seeks to emulate the Muslim Brotherhood and to replace the various tribal factions of Afghanistan with one unified Islamic state. This puts them at odds with the more tribe-oriented Taliban. (ILKHA)