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Afghan attack not linked to Iraq-peacekeepers

KABUL: International peacekeepers in Afghanistan said on Monday a rocket attack on their headquarters was not linked to the war in Iraq and may have been carried out by supporters of former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

In the latest in a series of attacks on foreign troops and aid workers since the start of the Iraq war, a 122-mm rocket fell inside the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) compound on Sunday night. There were no injuries.

"There is a significant difference from the type of attacks we have experienced so far...it is far more sophisticated," ISAF spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Lobbering told reporters.

Hekmatyar, an Islamic hardliner, is widely believed to have allied his Hizb-e-Islami forces with the Taliban to try to expel foreign forces and topple the government.

It was the first such attack on ISAF's Kabul headquarters. Another rocket was fired near an ISAF base on Sunday night, also without causing any injuries.

Lobbering said it was the first significant attack against ISAF since it deployed in Kabul to maintain peace with the help of Afghan police after the fundamentalist Taliban were ousted in late 2001 by US-led forces.

But he added ISAF did not expect any rise in attacks against its forces because of the Iraq war.

Rocket attacks are common against US bases but usually miss their target without causing injuries or damage.

Last week, an El Salvadorean Red Cross worker and two American special forces soldiers were killed in separate incidents in the south of Afghanistan blamed on remnants of the former Taliban regime.

Thousands of US troops remain in the country, searching for for remnants of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.-Reuters