Rumsfeld, Rocket Hit Afghanistan

A rocket exploded in a field yards from the U.S. Embassy here Thursday night about two hours after U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld met with Afghanistan's leader in another part of the capital, officials said.

No one was injured in the explosion, which one official blamed on the Taliban, and a U.S. military official said on condition of anonymity that Rumsfeld had safely left the country to continue his tour of Central Asia. It was not immediately known whether he had still been in Afghanistan when the blast occurred.

Also Thursday, suspected Taliban militants armed with AK-47s and machine guns ambushed a convoy of federal government census workers in southwestern Afghanistan, killing one of them and wounding 11, officials said.

The 60 workers were traveling in eight vehicles through Farah Province doing preliminary work on the war-torn country's first national census since 1979, said provincial Gov. Abdul Karim Baravi.

As police and soldiers with flashlights searched the field where the rocket landed on a moonlit night, Kabul military commander Mohammed Ayub Salangi said they found a piece of shrapnel that appeared to come from a truck-launched rocket.

Maj. Kevin Arata, a spokesman for the 5,700-member international peacekeepers who patrol Kabul, said the blast occurred 100 yards from the north side of their downtown headquarters. He said ISAF troops were investigating, but couldn't confirm that it was a rocket.

Matyullah Ramani, a senior Kabul police officer, said: "It was Taliban or Hekmatyar," a renegade commander allied with the former Taliban regime. "They are trying to disrupt the loya jirga," or Grand Council, which will meet in Kabul next week to approve a new constitution.

Hekmatyar, a former prime minister, heads Hezb-e-Islami, a faction that fought Soviet troops in Afghanistan in 1980s. He is suspected of having urged Afghans to fight the U.S.-led coalition forces now in the country and American forces are searching for him.

Azmary, an Afghan policeman, and witness Zikira Arian said they saw a flash, heard an explosion and thought it must have been a rocket. Like many Afghans, Azmary only has one name.

Despite ISAF, Afghanistan's U.S.-backed government has little control outside the capital because of attacks by pro-Taliban insurgents and fighting among powerful provincial warlords. Recently, terrorists attacks have increased sharply in the south and the east, forcing U.N. workers and relief agencies to reduce their work there.

Before traveling to Kabul on Thursday afternoon, Rumsfeld had met in northern Afghanistan with two of its main warlords and said he was satisfied that they have begun disarming, even though that was happening more slowly that he had hoped.

During his news conference in the capital with Karzai, Rumsfeld played down concerns that insecurity in the south and east of the country because of stepped-up Taliban attacks could delay national elections slated for June.

"I can't imagine that there will be any type of a delay from the standpoint of what you suggested," he said. Rumsfeld said that Afghan and coalition forces were capable of managing any situations that arise "quite well."

Karzai told reporters that with international support Afghanistan was on a "path to freedom" that the former ruling Islamic hardliners could not stop.

"We, together with the international community, have the responsibility ... to provide the means for the Afghan people to cast their free vote," he said, adding that voter registration had just begun. "The Taliban, terrorists, whoever they are, will not be able to disrupt the process."

The 60 census workers who were ambushed Thursday were traveling in eight vehicles through Farah Province doing preliminary work on the war-torn country's first national census since 1979, said provincial Gov. Abdul Karim Baravi.

The attackers, who were waiting along the road in two cars, quickly escaped after the assault, which left five of the wounded census workers in serious condition, said Baravi and a U.N. security official, Shafiq Khan.

"Taliban carried out this attack. The attackers were not thieves. They didn't steal anything," Baravi told The Associated Press. The assault occurred about 110 miles west of Kandahar, the capital of neighboring Kandahar province.

Hours later, a Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility.

"We will give such treatment to people who work with the Americans, whether they are foreigners or locals," Mullah Abdul Hakim Latifi said in a satellite telephone call to an Associated Press reporter in Kandahar.

Latifi was a culture and information official under the Taliban and claims to still speak for the group.