A suicide bomber targeted the Afghan interior minister's car in a convoy north of Kabul on Sunday, the ministry said, but the minister was not in the vehicle at the time and the attacker was killed before he could detonate his explosives.
"A suicide bomber who targeted the interior minister's convey today was killed by police, the minister was not in the convoy," interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said on Twitter.
The minister had been planning to travel in the convoy, but changed his plans at the last minute and sent a deputy in his usual vehicle, Sediqqi said.
The spokesman for the governor of Parwan province, north of Kabul, had earlier said the minister was in the convoy and the attacker struck when he broke his journey to pray.
Provincial governor's spokesman Roshan Khalid later said he was mistaken in saying the minister was present.
There has been a string of high-profile assassinations over the last year, including President Hamid Karzai's powerful half-brother and his top peace envoy, a top police commander for the north, and the governor of Kunduz province.
The killings have underlined the insurgents' reach even as a surge of foreign troops made gains in their southern heartlands, although Nato-led forces said Karzai's killer had a personal grudge, and was not an insurgent sympathiser.
{{/usCountry}}The killings have underlined the insurgents' reach even as a surge of foreign troops made gains in their southern heartlands, although Nato-led forces said Karzai's killer had a personal grudge, and was not an insurgent sympathiser.
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