Several rockets fired into Kabul

KABUL – At least five rockets slammed into Kabul at daybreak today, one of them falling near the U.S. Embassy in a rare attack on the Afghan capital fewer than three weeks before presidential elections, police and residents said.

The explosions, heard by Associated Press reporters, occurred to the east of the city, toward the international airport and near residential areas.

The impact of one of the rockets could be seen about 200 yards from the U.S. Embassy on a main road in central Kabul. It hit the house of a senior Interior Ministry official but caused no casualties, officials said.

At the scene, Maj. Ghulam Rasul of the Afghan national army said he believed the rockets were of the long-range BM1 type, which can be fired from portable rocket launchers positioned on the ground several miles from their target. “The capital is closely guarded. They had to fire from far away,” Rasul said.

“There’s no indication these rockets were targeting any particular site in Kabul,” said American Embassy spokeswoman Fleur Cowan. She said the embassy had not implemented any special security measures today beyond its usual response in cases of indirect fire.

Australia foils terrorist plot

MELBOURNE, Australia – Police in Australia foiled a terrorist plot for commando-style suicide attacks on at least one army base, arresting four men today with suspected links to a Somali Islamist group, senior officers said.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the plot was a “sober reminder” that Australia is still under threat from extremist groups enraged that the country sent troops to join the U.S.-led military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Some 400 state and national security officers took part in 19 pre-dawn raids in Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city, police said. Four men, all Australian citizens of Somali or Lebanese descent and aged between 22 and 26, were arrested, and several others were being questioned, police said.

Terrorist violence is extremely rare in Australia – a 1978 bombing near the Hilton Hotel that killed two is the best-known incident – and no attacks have been carried out on Australian soil since the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. raised security threat levels worldwide.