Karzai survives assassination bid by Taliban
AFGHANISTAN: Taliban militants fired rockets near President Hamid
Karzai in an apparent assassination attempt in central Afghanistan, but
the missiles fell far from their target and no one was hurt, officials
and witnesses said.
The assassination bid Sunday was one among a spate of attacks that
killed at least 66 people, mostly militants, over the weekend in restive
Afghanistan.
Karzai was giving a speech to the elders and residents of Andar
district in Ghazni province when rockets were fired nearby, said Ali
Shah Ahmadzai, provincial police chief. No one was hurt, he said.
Witnesses said they heard between three and six rockets, but the
Taliban claimed it fired off 12.
The rockets missed their target, with two of them landing some 200
meters away from the crowd, said Arif Yaqoubi, a local reporter
attending the event.
"Please sit down," Karzai told a nervous crowd under a tent in a
school yard. "Don't be scared. Nothing is happening."
Karzai finished his speech and his security detail whisked him off by
helicopter to Kabul, witnesses and officials said. It was the third
attempt on Karzai's life since he became president following the ouster
of the Taliban regime in 2001. Purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef
Ahmadi told The Associated Press that Taliban militants were behind the
attack.
"The Taliban knew that Karzai was coming to Andar district. When
Karzai was meeting with the people, the Taliban fired 12 rockets,"
Ahmadi said by satellite phone from an undisclosed location. "The
rockets fell nearby." Khial Mohammad, a Ghazni lawmaker also at the
event, said during the speech "we heard the sounds of rockets whizzing
over our heads" before slamming down in the distance.
In northwestern Afghanistan, meanwhile, militants attacked three
separate police posts Saturday in Murghab district of Badghis province,
sparking a six-hour battle that left 20 suspected Taliban and two
officers dead, said provincial police chief Gen. Mohammad Ayub Naizyar.
Police repelled the attack and sent reinforcements to the area, forcing
the militants to withdraw, Naizyar said.
NATO and Afghan troops clashed with militants and called in
airstrikes Saturday, leaving 27 suspected Taliban dead in southern Zabul
province, said Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi.
Kabul, Monday, AP |