KABUL, Afghanistan – A rocket slammed into the Afghan capital near the American Embassy and other diplomatic missions early Friday, a day before landmark elections. All American Embassy staff were ordered to briefly take cover in an underground bunker.

The rocket hit a parking lot near a press accreditation center for the elections, causing no damage or casualties, said the lieutenant commander, Ken MacKillop, a spokesman for international peacekeepers.

He said peacekeepers suspected a second rocket may have hit nearby, but no impact site was found.

“We are alert and investigating,” he said.

Heavily-armed American and Afghan troops sealed off the roads leading to the diplomatic area.

Beth Lee, a spokeswoman for the American Embassy, said all staff had been ordered to take cover in an underground bunker as a precaution. A senior American official in Washington said embassy staff were allowed out of the bunkers a short time later.

The blast shattered a relatively calm lead-up to Saturday’s vote, at least in the capital. It was loud enough to shake windows and rouse people from bed.

The headquarters for the 9,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force is also close to the American Embassy, as are the German and Pakistani missions.

It was the first apparent attack in Kabul since August 28, when a huge car bomb outside a private American security firm killed 10 people – three of them Americans. The Americans were helping train anti-narcotics police.

Taliban and Al Qaeda rebels have kept up a steady stream of attacks throughout Afghanistan since campaigning for the election began September 7, but they have so far failed to launch the type of high-impact assault that might derail the vote.

Afghanistan’s interior minister, Ali Ahmad Jalali, said yesterday that Afghan forces had thwarted at least 20 attacks and arrested more than 100 people since the start of the campaign, but that the rebels had managed more than 60 rocket or bomb attacks during the period, most in the provinces.

He put the death toll at more than 60 – including 15 civilians, 19 security personnel, and 30 suspected rebels. Six Afghan troops were taken hostage.

In addition to rebel violence, drug smugglers are believed to be posing an increasingly large threat to the country’s stability.

Mr. Jalali said drug traffickers, not the Taliban, were responsible for an attack Wednesday on interim leader Hamid Karzai’s vice presidential running mate, Ahmed Zia Massood.

One person was killed and five others wounded in the bombing, including the former governor of Badakhshan, a mountainous northeastern poppy-growing region. Mr. Massood was unhurt.

Mr. Jalali said “the evidence shows that it was the work of drug smugglers, because this process is against their interests.”

The attack was the third against Mr. Karzai and his political allies since campaigning began. The president survived a rocket assault on his helicopter on September 16 in the eastern city of Gardez, and one of his four current vice presidents survived a bomb attack four days later. The Taliban was suspected in those attacks. During the last major political event in Kabul, the loya jirga, or grand council, in December and January, terrorists fired a series of rockets on the city, though there were no casualties.

Mr. Karzai yesterday praised his people for embracing the elections, despite the recent bloodshed. He acknowledged problems of rebel violence and warlord intimidation – even some being carried out in his name – but said Afghanistan could not wait forever to hold its vote.