A rocket struck near Kabul's airport on Saturday, a key base of foreign peacekeeping troops, but caused no casualties or damage, an Afghan Interior Ministry official said. General Deen Mohammad Jurat, the ministry security chief, said the Russian-made rocket, called a BM1, landed after dawn on the perimeter of the airport to the northeast of the city.

Nobody immediately claimed responsibility.

Jurat linked the incident to forces opposed to the presence of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the new government of Hamid Karzai, elected transitional president at this month's Loya Jirga traditional grand assembly.

"We have some renegade individuals such as Hekmatyar and the Taliban who resort to these kinds of acts," Jurat told reporters.

He was referring to anti-government warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an exiled former prime minister blamed for destroying much of Kabul during factional fighting in the early 1990s.

Kabul has come under several attacks since the Taliban were toppled by U.S. air strikes and Afghan ground forces last year.
Several rockets have struck close to ISAF bases. Ten days ago a handful flew across the city, one landing near the U.S. embassy, but failed to explode.

An ISAF spokesman said a French patrol had investigated the latest blast but had found nothing and even villagers had nothing to report. ISAF has been responsible for security in Kabul since late last year.

MAP CAPTION

Landlocked and mountainous, Afghanistan has suffered from such chronic instability and conflict during its modern history that its economy and infrastructure are in ruins, and many of its people are refugees. It is also afflicted by natural calamities such as earthquakes and drought. (BBC- Country profile).