Kandahar, Afghanistan ? A close ally of Afghan President Hamid Karzai was gunned down in southern Afghanistan in an attack provincial officials Saturday blamed on the Taliban.

Haji Gilani and his nephew were killed outside their home in the town of Deh Rawood on Thursday night by six gunmen, said Dad Mullah, a spokesman for the Uruzgan provincial government.

Uruzgan governor Jan Mohammed told The Associated Press police had identified one of the suspected gunmen as Mardan Khan, whose brother was a Taliban commander. Witnesses reported seeing Khan flee the village after the attack. Police were investigating and no arrests have been made.

But Karzai’s spokesman said a tribal feud may have been the motive.

“This was not a political murder. There was some enmity, some personal differences between two villages or two tribes,” presidential spokesman Sayed Fazel Akbar said.

Gilani was the first man to give Karzai shelter in the province of Uruzgan as he launched his anti-Taliban revolt weeks before the religious militia collapsed under heavy U.S. bombing in late 2001.

Karzai entered Afghanistan secretly with only a handful of close followers and relied heavily on anti-Taliban sympathizers for support and protection. He slipped past Taliban checkpoints on the back of motorcycles, and lived for days in homes of followers who risked their lives to protect him and helped rally support against the Taliban.

“He was a friend of Karzai and we are so sorry for this unhappy incident,” Akbar said.