KABUL, Sept 5: Afghanistan was rocked by two shattering attacks on Thursday, with President Hamid Karzai surviving an assassination attempt in Kandahar hours after a massive car bomb in Kabul killed up to 30 people and wounded 50 others.

A “uniformed attacker” opened fire at Karzai as he was travelling in a car to a shrine in the centre of Kandahar around 6.30pm (8pm PST), Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said at a press conference here.

“The president himself has survived,” Abdullah said.

Kandahar governor Gul Agha was slightly injured in the incident and the assassin was shot dead on the spot by a bodyguard. But the guard was also killed in the exchange.

The assassination attempt came less than four hours after an explosion tore through a busy Kabul district near the information and culture ministry.

The mid-afternoon explosion, the worst attack in post-Taliban Afghanistan, left “up to 30 people dead and 50 injured”, government spokesman Omar Samad said at a press conference here.

“The toll is rising because many have been injured, we know so far that it may be up to 30. Fifty people have been injured, some very seriously,” he said.

The attack comes just days before the Sept 9 anniversary of the assassination of Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah Masood and the anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks in the United States.

One casualty of the Kabul blast, who was heavily bandaged, said a station wagon had exploded near the ministry and the Spinzar Hotel, and Wajdan said police believed the blast may have been a car bomb.

A senior police official said the explosion had been preceded by a smaller blast.

“The blast was deliberately timed to go off at the busiest time of the day,” he said.

“All of the victims were civilians but there were no children. These victims were just people who were waiting around to buy something to eat and support their families.”—AFP