KABUL, Sept 8 (AFP) - International peacekeepers in Afghanistan Wednesday said they had received a tip-off that a "terrorist" posing as a cameraman was trying to enter the capital.
"We have reports that a terrorist, maybe posing as a cameraman, is trying to enter Kabul," Lieutenant Commander Ken Mackillop, spokesman for the NATO-led peacekeeping force told AFP.
His comments came as Afghanistan marked the third anniversary of the death of late resistance leader Ahmad Shah Masood.
Masood was assassinated by Al-Qaeda militants posing as cameramen two days ahead of the September 11 attacks in the United States.
A US-led military offensive was launched a month later to oust the hardline Taliban regime for refusing to hand over the alleged mastermind of the attacks, Osama bin Laden.
Three years on, loyalists of Afghanistan`s former rulers are waging a deadly campaign of bomb attacks and ambushes targeting troops as well as aid and electoral workers.
President Hamid Karzai, who was installed as leader in December 2001 and is running against 17 other candidates in Afghanistan`s first presidential elections, Wednesday attended a memorial ceremony in Masood`s honour.
Peacekeepers, Afghan security authorities and the US-led military have recently stepped up patrols in Kabul and around the country to ensure security for the October 9 elections.
Meanwhile, suspected Taliban insurgents attacked US-led coalition forces in southern Afghanistan, US military spokesman Major Scott Nelson told reporters in Kabul.
"There were no coalition injuries," from Monday`s firefight in which troops were attacked by militants near Deh Rawood, a troubled district in Uruzgan province, some 200 kilometers (240 miles) south-west of Kabul.
Some 18,500 US-led soldiers, supported by more than 13,000 newly-trained Afghan troops, are hunting Taliban-allied insurgent groups in southern and eastern provinces.
A further 8,000 international troops under the command of NATO are patrolling Kabul and some northern provinces.
A total of 500 NATO-led troops will be in place in northern Afghanistan by the end of this week, including 285 Spanish troops deploying this week to the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Major Juan Jose Castellanos told AFP.
The Spaniards will stay for three months to help train Afghan National Army troops and Afghan police ahead of elections, he said.