Afghan security forces have arrested two men linked to al-Qaeda who were apparently planning to assassinate President Mr Hamid Karzai or senior cabinet ministers.
An Afghan man and another suspect believed to be foreign were pulled over in a car containing semtex in the centre of Kabul yesterday, said Gen Din Mohammad Jurat, director of public security at the interior ministry.
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai
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"It was a programme to kill Karzai or one of the key members of the government like [defence minister Mohammad Qasim] Fahim or someone else in the cabinet," he said.
"We strongly believe that they [the detainees] were related to al-Qaeda or Hezb-i-Islami, which is right now an ally of al-Qaeda."
Gen Jurat said that the explosives were hidden in a door panel. Wires and nails, which would maximise the impact of any explosion, were also found.
"They wanted to park the car close [to their intended target] and then detonate it with remote control. The way the wires are set up we understand it was remote control."
Former Afghan prime minister Mr Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the fundamentalist Hezb-i-Islami party, has been accused of linking up with al-Qaeda in recent months.
AFP