Afghan Chief Unharmed in Attack on Airport

A rocket slammed into a Kabul airport runway Friday as a plane carrying interim President Sibghatullah Mojaddidi and 69 other people taxied in after landing. No one was seriously hurt, airport officials said.

The co-pilot on the flight from Pakistan was cut in the arm by shrapnel that pierced the cockpit window, officials said. Two other rockets, fired from north of the airport, missed.

No one claimed responsibility for the late-afternoon attack. Suspicions centered on radical Muslim fundamentalist guerrillas, camped outside Kabul.

Passengers said they heard whistling noises and then saw flashes of blinding light as the rocket smashed into the runway. An ashen-faced Mojaddidi emerged later with the rest of his entourage.

“The incident was serious. But the plane landed safely, and the president was not hurt,” Mojaddidi’s son, Zahibullah, said. He blamed fundamentalist rebels.

The radical Hezb-i-Islami faction, whose leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, is a longtime opponent of the president, is based in southern Kabul. But diplomats said the rockets came from the north.

The plane was bringing Mojaddidi and his entourage from a three-day visit to Pakistan, the staging area for Muslim rebels in their 14-year struggle against Communist rule in Afghanistan.

It was Mojaddidi’s first visit outside Afghanistan since he was sworn in as president of the interim Islamic government that replaced President Najibullah on April 28.