'Assassination' attempt on minister

Gunmen tried to assassinate the Afghan defence minister today by shooting at his convoy at Kabul's main airport, but he already had left his vehicle and was unhurt, a Defence Ministry spokesman said.

Nine Afghan soldiers were arrested in connection with the shooting, spokesman General Mohammed Saher Azimi said.

“It is clear that it was an assassination attempt on the defence minister,” he told reporters.

He said four bullets hit the convoy as it was leaving the airport, one “hitting the exact place where the defence minister had been sitting in the car”.

One bullet wounded a defence ministry staffer who was still in the convoy.

Other Cabinet ministers had also been travelling in the convoy before they were dropped off at the airport to board a helicopter.

The shooting came a week before landmark legislative elections that Taliban rebels have vowed to subvert. The militants have stepped up attacks across much of the country, leaving more than 1,200 people dead in the past six months.

The motive for the shooting was not immediately clear. A senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak on the matter, earlier said the soldiers were angered by a pay dispute.

After the attack, the ministers flew to Panjshir Valley for a memorial in honour of Ahmed Shah Masood, the former head of the US-backed Northern Alliance who was killed by two suspected al-Qaida assassins on September 9, 2001.