Rocket strike misses Afghan leader
The barrage came down as President Hamid Karzai spoke to elders. It was the third failed try.
KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban militants trained a barrage of rockets on President Hamid Karzai yesterday as he spoke with a group of elders in central Afghanistan, narrowly missing the leader.
A purported Taliban spokesman said militants planned the strike after learning in advance about Karzai's arrival - a sign of the group's rising capabilities after a winter lull in violence.
It was the third attempt on Karzai's life since he became president. He did not flinch as the rockets landed about 200 yards away, said Arif Yaqoubi, a local reporter.
"Please sit down, sit down," Karzai told the gathering under a tent in a school yard, gesturing for them to be seated after the rockets landed with a thud. "Don't be scared. Nothing is happening."
When Karzai finished his speech, his security detail whisked him off by helicopter to Kabul, witnesses and officials said. Provincial police chief Ali Shah Ahmadzai said no one was wounded in the attack in Ghazni, a province with a strong Taliban presence.
In 2002, a gunmen dressed in an Afghan army uniform opened fire as Karzai moved toward his motorcade in the southern city of Kandahar. The assailant and two others were killed; Karzai was unscathed.
In 2004, insurgents fired a rocket at an American helicopter taking Karzai to the eastern city of Gardez, missing the chopper as it approached a landing zone.
In northwestern Afghanistan, militants attacked three outposts Saturday in the Murghab district of Badghis province, sparking a six-hour battle that killed 20 suspected Taliban fighters and two police, said Gen. Mohammad Ayub Naizyar, provincial police chief.
In Zabul province, NATO and Afghan troops clashed with the Taliban and called in air strikes, leaving 27 suspected insurgents dead, the Defense Ministry said.
