Afghans hold Taliban suspects for Karzai attack

Three suspected Taliban members have been arrested for trying to kill Afghan President Hamid Karzai by firing a rocket at his helicopter during his first election campaign trip outside Kabul, officials said yesterday.

The attack on Thursday in the southeastern town of Gardez, in which no one was injured, was part of a Taliban campaign to disrupt October 9 presidential elections, government officials said.

The suspects, aged from 20 to 23, were captured shortly after Thursday's attack, in which a rocket flew over Mr Karzai's US military helicopter and about 400 supporters gathered to meet him at a school as he was about to touch down in Gardez.

The president's campaign trip, his first outside Kabul, was immediately aborted. The men were captured after they tried to flee by motorcycle and were chased to a house in the centre of Gardez, where police found detonators and explosives, said Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal.

"They admitted during questioning that they carried out the attack," Mr Mashal said, adding that the men fired the rocket from the village of Rabat on the outskirts of town.

The former ruling Taliban militia, who have vowed to disrupt what will be Afghanistan's first ever direct presidential polls, quickly claimed responsibility for the attack.

The captured men were suspected of being members of the Taliban, said Haji Assadullah Wafa, the governor of Paktia province, of which Gardez is the capital.