Kandahar, Afganistan - A prominent Muslim cleric who made calls for peace in Afghanistan has been shot dead with two family members in restive Kunar province, officials say.
Maulvi Rahman Gul was gunned down in an ambush when returning home in the Chapa Dara district on Sunday. No group has said it carried out the attack.
Militants have targeted clerics in the south. But analysts say such attacks in eastern Afghanistan are rare.
On Monday two Italian soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Herat.
The Italian foreign ministry said the soldiers were part of an international military convoy.
The deaths came after a weekend of violence. On Sunday two US servicemen died in southern Afghanistan. And in Kandahar on the same day, suicide bombers launched an attack on a police building.
All the attackers were killed and three policemen were wounded, police say.
Maulvi Rahman Gul had been stressing the importance of "peace and stability" across Afghanistan in recent days, the Associated Press news agency reports.
He was the chief cleric of his district and a member of a clerical council for eastern Afghanistan.