KABUL — A rocket fired at a house in Kabul killed three members of one family and injured two others, Afghan officials said Monday.

"Three members of one family have been martyred and two others wounded," an interior ministry official told AFP.

The rocket was fired from the outskirts of the city, landing on the Spin Kalay neighbourhood, a densely populated residential area in the capital's western suburbs, he said.

"We are investigating where exactly the rocket was fired from," said the ministry press office.

The office told AFP the incident happened late Sunday night, rather than early Monday as it had said earlier.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai "strongly condemned the attack," his office said in a statement.

"The enemies of Islam and Afghanistan showed their enmity with Islam and the people of Afghanistan by firing rockets into Kabul with no specific target killing three innocent civilians while asleep in Ramadan month," read the statement.

Western diplomats resident in Kabul have said that rocket attacks are an almost nightly occurrence though rarely claim lives. They aim to intimidate the population and make them aware of the insurgent presence.

Kabul was devastated by rockets and small arms fire during the 1992-1996 civil war but since the Taliban regime was pushed from power in late 2001, the city has undergone a building boom.

The Taliban have also reemerged as a virulent enemy, increasingly relying on hidden remote-controlled bombs that are killing record numbers of troops, as well as ordinary Afghans.

One such roadside bomb killed two children and wounded 21 men in Tirin Kot, capital of south-central Uruzgan province on Monday morning, said provincial health director Jan Agha Miakhail.

Uruzgan police chief Juma Gul Himate said the explosion happened as a police vehicle was passing through a crowded part of town.

Separately on Sunday, rocket attacks in the Sirkanay district of eastern Kunar province killed a couple and wounded three of their daughters, police said, adding that a man was hurt in a second rocket attack.