KABUL, July 12: A senior female Afghan politician on Monday survived an attempt on her life in eastern Afghanistan in the latest attack on government and electoral workers in the area.

Safia Sediqi, a women's activist who is the women's representative for eastern Nangarhar province and an adviser to the rural development minister, said she escaped an attempted ambush as she was travelling to the provincial capital Jalalabad.

"I was on my way back from Khogiani district to Jalabad city when we saw two armed men on the highway waiting for our convoy, but as soon as they realized we had more than a dozen bodyguards they tried to escape," she said.

Sadia Sediqi said her guards gave chase, but one attacker escaped while the other committed suicide as they were trying to arrest him. The attacker who killed himself, "swallowed his identity card and destroyed documents he had on him, then he blew himself with one of the handgrenades he was carrying," she said.

The aborted attack comes three days after Afghanistan set an October date for presidential elections and is the latest incident in a wave of violence which has swept the country in the run-up to the elections.

Ms Sediqi was on a mission to Nangarhar to look at rural problems and went to Khogiani district, 90kms east of Kabul, to investigate the drinking water shortage in the district. -AFP