Kabul hit by rockets

KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 4, 2009, (UPI) --

Up to eight rockets fired by Taliban fighters hit Afghanistan's capital Kabul early Tuesday, Afghan officials said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Nikzad said there were no injuries, but China's Xinhua news agency, quoting Kabul television station Tolo, said two persons were wounded.

"The rockets fired from Deh Sabz area landed at several places including the posh area Wazir Akbar Khan," Tolo reported, quoting Interior Ministry spokesman Zamarai Bashari. Deh Sabz is about 10 miles north of Kabul.

The incident was the first in at least five years that the country's capital had come under such a large barrage of rockets. They marked the latest in a series of Taliban attacks in the country ahead of presidential elections set for Aug. 20.

One of the rockets fell several hundred yards from the U.S. embassy, CNN reported. Embassy spokeswoman Fleur Cowan said she heard one of the explosions at around 4 a.m.

"We don't have any indication these rockets were targeting any particular site," Cowan said. "They seem to have hit different parts of the city."

The CNN report said the Taliban asked Afghans to boycott the elections.

In recent war attacks, nine NATO soldiers died last weekend and roadside bomb attack Monday against police in Herat killed at least 12 people and wounded 20.

Taliban rockets land near embassies in Afghan capital

By Sayed Salahuddin Sayed Salahuddin – Tue Aug 4, 5:45 am ET

KABUL (Reuters) –

Taliban fighters fired at least nine rockets at the Afghan capital before dawn on Tuesday in the biggest attack of its kind for several years, some landing near major Western embassies, police and witnesses said.

Two rockets struck the Wazir Akbar Khan diplomatic area, home to both the U.S. and British embassies as well as the headquarters of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

War attacks across Afghanistan this year had already reached worst level since 2001 and escalated further after thousands of U.S. Marines launched a major offensive in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand in the south last month.

At least one rocket landed near a hospital close to the U.S. embassy, television pictures showed.

Other rockets landed in different areas of the city, shattering windows and startling residents in the pre-dawn darkness. One child was wounded.

Separately, a provincial governor escaped unhurt after roadside bombs hit his convoy just west of the capital in an apparent assassination attempt, a spokesman said.

Residents said Tuesday's rocket attack was the biggest for several years. It was also the first serious attack in Kabul in this year's upswing of violence, which has gradually spread out of Taliban strongholds in the south and east.

The Taliban claimed to have fired 12 rockets at Kabul, with the city's combined military and civilian airport their target.

An ISAF spokeswoman said the force had heard reports that between five and 12 rockets were fired at Kabul. None landed in the ISAF base but investigations were under way, she said.

GOVERNOR ESCAPES BOMBING

Mohammad Halim Fedaye, governor of Maidan Wardak province just west of Kabul, was unhurt after his convoy was hit by roadside bombs on Kabul's western outskirts on Tuesday, a spokesman for Fedaye said. There were no other casualties.

The attack on Fedaye was the latest in a string of ambushes and bombings aimed at candidates, campaign officials and election offices in the past two weeks. A vice-presidential running mate of Karzai's was among those attacked but was also unhurt.

Also on Tuesday, a suicide bomber killed four civilians and an intelligence official in southern Zabul province, police said.

On Monday, a roadside bomb attack claimed by the Taliban killed at least 12 people in the normally peaceful western city of Herat, an important commercial hub near the Iranian border.

At least nine foreign troops, including six Americans, were killed at the weekend, mainly in the south and east.

The U.S. military has poured thousands of extra troops into Afghanistan in recent months, with NATO members sending smaller numbers, in a bid to help secure the election.

The extra troops are part of U.S. President Barack Obama's wider new regional strategy to defeat the Taliban and its Islamist allies and stabilize Afghanistan.

(Additional reporting by Ismail Sameem in KANDAHAR and Samar Zwak in GARDEZ; Editing by Paul Tait and Sanjeev Miglani)