Kabul:
Insurgents today fired a rocket near the venue of a major meeting in the Afghan capital Kabul discussing the controversial presence of US troops after NATO combat forces leave in 2014.
The strike in Kabul, which was claimed by the Taliban, wounded one person but highlighted lingering security fears at the four-day loya jirga, which brings together around 2,000 elders from around the warring country.
During Afghanistan's last loya jirga in 2010, militants fired rockets at the event in a security breach that led to two ministers resigning.
Afghanistan's intelligence agency said two men in their 20s had been detained in connection with Thursday's attack, adding their target was the jirga and they were arrested in a house with a cache of hand grenades. "The two men who had fired the rocket this morning have both been captured," said Lutfullah Mashal, a spokesman for the National Directorate of Security (NDS). "They have confessed to firing the rockets."
Interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said one of the rockets landed by the side of a road in an area next to the Intercontinental Hotel, which an AFP reporter said was roughly 500 metres from the jirga venue. A member of staff involved in organising the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity, said people at the venue were preparing for the day's business when the rockets were fired, but that delegates had yet to arrive.
One civilian was "slightly injured" by the other rocket, Sediqqi said, which landed several kilometres from the jirga venue. In a text message sent to journalists, the Taliban claimed it launched two rockets at the loya jirga tent late yesterday.
The strike in Kabul, which was claimed by the Taliban, wounded one person but highlighted lingering security fears at the four-day loya jirga, which brings together around 2,000 elders from around the warring country.
During Afghanistan's last loya jirga in 2010, militants fired rockets at the event in a security breach that led to two ministers resigning.
Afghanistan's intelligence agency said two men in their 20s had been detained in connection with Thursday's attack, adding their target was the jirga and they were arrested in a house with a cache of hand grenades. "The two men who had fired the rocket this morning have both been captured," said Lutfullah Mashal, a spokesman for the National Directorate of Security (NDS). "They have confessed to firing the rockets."
Interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said one of the rockets landed by the side of a road in an area next to the Intercontinental Hotel, which an AFP reporter said was roughly 500 metres from the jirga venue. A member of staff involved in organising the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity, said people at the venue were preparing for the day's business when the rockets were fired, but that delegates had yet to arrive.
One civilian was "slightly injured" by the other rocket, Sediqqi said, which landed several kilometres from the jirga venue. In a text message sent to journalists, the Taliban claimed it launched two rockets at the loya jirga tent late yesterday.
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