A parliamentary election aspirant, Mowlana Abdul Rahman Hakimi, on Thursday survived a grenade assault in southern Ghazni province, provincial official say

Confirming the incident, deputy provincial government, Mohammad Kazim Ali Yar told TOLOnews reporter that Mowlana Abdul Rahman Hakimi with one of his guards and one civilian were wounded after a gunman riding a motorbike threw a grenade at them.

Mr Hakimi and the other wounded ones were immediately taken to a nearby local hospital.

No groups, including the Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack.

Previously, a number of candidates for the Afghan parliamentary polling had also been targeted by insurgents in different parts of the country.

The Independent Election Commission (IEC) reported that three candidates and up to thirteen campaign workers or supporters were killed and wounded by insurgents in the country.

In the latest incident, a candidate was targeted on Tuesday in northern Faryab province and consequently one of his guards was hurt in the attack.

The Afghan parliamentary poll is to be held in September 18 and Afghan security forces acknowledged that efforts are on the ground to ensure security in the upcoming poll.

The spokesman for the Ministry of Interior Affairs (MoI) told reporters in a joint press conference on Sunday that only 5914 centres will be secured

The spokesman for the MoI, Zemarai Bashari, remarked the decision is made by all foreign and Afghan security organisations and the figure will not be changed.

Meanwhile, he acknowledged that the Taliban's attack on foreign troops' bastions in eastern Afghanistan was coordinated, expressing awareness of the incidents.

"Police forces had intelligence information that such attacks were planned. Secondly, a defence ring was formed in the area and when the insurgents were trying to infiltrate into Khost province at 03:00 pm, the ring targeted them," said Mr Zemarai.

While security operations have been boosted in order to ensure security for the upcoming parliament poll, the MoI said some 5914 polling centres of 6830 will be secured.

The factors which led to the limitation of polling centres are rugged routes, Kuchis' (nomads) uncertain locations and security threats, the MoI said.

"I should say that the decision is not made only by MoI. All security organisations are involved in it," he said. "Only the MoI cannot decrease or increase the centres, there should be general understanding on everything."

In the coordinated assaults that took place in eastern Afghanistan which targeted two foreign troops compounds, 24 insurgents were killed and 5 others were wounded by the Afghan and foreign forces in the gun battle.