KARZAI

KABUL (AP):

Taliban militants fired rockets near President Hamid Karzai in an apparent assassination attempt in central Afghanistan yesterday, but the missiles fell far from their target and no one was hurt, officials and witnesses said.

The assassination bid was one among a spate of attacks that killed at least 66 people, mostly militants, on 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 metres (220 yards) 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."

Security detail

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 north-western Afghanistan, meanwhile, a six-hour gun battle between militants and security forces left 20 suspected Taliban and two officers dead.