Kabul ? At least five rockets slammed into Kabul at daybreak today, one of them falling near the U.S. Embassy in a rare attack on the Afghan capital fewer than three weeks before presidential elections, police and residents said.

The explosions, heard by AP reporters, occurred to the east of the city, toward the international airport and near several residential areas.

The impact of one of the rockets could be seen about 200 yards from the U.S. Embassy on a main road in central Kabul. It hit the house of a senior Interior Ministry official but caused no casualties, security officers said.

At the scene, Maj. Ghulam Rasul of the Afghan national army said he believed the rockets were of the long-range BM1 type, which can be fired from portable rocket launchers positioned on the ground several miles from their target.