Three wounded after rockets land near Kabul police academy in IS-claimed attack

At least three people were wounded in Kabul on Tuesday after three rockets were fired into the Afghan capital, police said.

The rockets landed in residential areas "near the mountains in PD5 (police district)" in the west of the city, police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai said. It is not clear if a nearby police academy was the intended target.

Police have been deployed to find the launch site, Stanikzai added.

No group has come forward to claim responsibility.

The rocket attacks come just two days after a suicide bomber killed 23 people and wounded a further 107 near Kabul international airport.

Sunday's attack was claimed by the Islamic State group (IS), which said it had targeted Afghan Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum, who returned to Kabul after more than a year in exile.

Scores of government officials, political leaders and supporters had gone to the airport to welcome home Dostum, a powerful ethnic Uzbek leader and former warlord.

Dostum was unharmed in the attack, his armoured vehicle having already whisked him away when the bomber struck.

The attacks also came a day after top US commanders told reporters in Kabul that they were seeing progress in the nearly 17-year war.

General Joseph Votel, who heads the Central Command that oversees US operations in the region, expressed "cautious optimism" that President Donald Trump's South Asia strategy was working.

As evidence, Votel pointed to the Afghan government's unilateral ceasefire last month that was reciprocated by the Taliban for three days - the first formal nationwide truce since the war started.

"Our campaign approach of (increasing) military pressure provided the time and space for diplomatic and social pressure to pursue this opportunity," Votel said.