Afghan leader not cowed by rocket attack -spokesman

KABUL:  Afghan President Hamid Karzai has no plans to restrict his travel or beef up personal security after surviving a third assassination attempt in a rocket attack outside the capital, a presidential spokesman said on Monday.

Taliban insurgents fired several rockets at a building where Karzai was giving a speech on Sunday. They fell harmlessly wide of their target but the incident highlighted the dangers for Karzai of travelling outside his heavily fortified base in Kabul.

"The president''s schedule is business as usual," a presidential spokesman Khaleeq Ahmad said. "His security has done a great job and no changes will be made ... The president will continue his provincial visits all over Afghanistan," he added.

Since installed to lead Afghanistan in 2001, following the overthrow of the Taliban, Karzai has now survived three assassination attempts, including a previous rocket attack during a helicopter trip in the 2004 presidential election race.

In 2002, a Taliban fighter tried to shoot him during a visit to southern Kandahar city -- his birthplace and the stronghold of Taliban insurgents.   

That attack and the assassination of one of Karzai''s deputies in broad daylight in Kabul, prompted Washington, the president''s staunch supporter, to provide him protection with scores of U.S. security guards.   

In the face of criticism by some Afghans over the protection by U.S. body guards, Karzai publicly relies largely on his American-trained Afghan security apparatus.   

The president is known as the ;mayor of Kabul; to his critics, who say his power does not extend much beyond his palace, which hides behind sandbag ramparts, concrete blocks, razor wire and machine-gun nests in the capital.   

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE? A government official, who declined to be identified because he feared he was breaching security protocol, said Karzai had been notified that militants might attempt a rocket attack during his visit to Ghazni province, southwest of Kabul, on Sunday.   

Spokesman Ahmad declined to comment on Karzai''s prior intelligence but said threats are constant.
   
"Rocket attacks are something normal for him," Ahmad said, noting that for several years in the 1990s rockets rained down on parts of Kabul.

"For an Afghan, when a rocket lands close by their house, no one flinches. They keep watching their TV.;" Karzai had been in Ghazni to speak to elders of impoverished Andar district at a government building. Another government official and an eyewitness said the audience began to flee when the rockets crashed down several hundred metres away, but Karzai urged them to stay and finished his speech.   

Despite winning a historic mandate in the country''s first ever presidential elections in 2004, Karzai has been politically weakened by a resurgent Taliban, widespread corruption and constant battles with parliament.