Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah said he had escaped an assassination attempt Friday when an explosion hit his campaign motorcade in Kabul just days ahead of a hotly contested run-off election.

Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah said he had escaped an assassination attempt Friday when an explosion hit his campaign motorcade in Kabul just days ahead of a hotly contested run-off election.

"A few minutes ago, when we left a campaign rally our convoy was hit by a mine," Abdullah told another election rally in quotes broadcast on Afghan television. He added that some of his guards were mildly wounded, while he was unhurt.

The blast site was cordoned off by security officials as ambulances rushed to the scene and took the wounded to hospital, making their way through a sandstorm that hit the capital, television footage showed.

The assassination attempt came ahead of the second-round presidential election on June 14, which Taliban insurgents have threatened to disrupt.
No one has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

Afghanistan is in the middle of elections to choose a successor to President Hamid Karzai, who has ruled since the fall of the 1996-2001 Taliban regime.
Abdullah fell short of the 50 percent threshold needed for an outright victory in the April first round and will face former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani in the run-off.

"We condemn the attack on respected presidential candidate Dr. Abdullah Abdullah," Ghani said on Twitter.

"This is the act of the enemies of Afghanistan to disrupt the democratic process in the country."