KABUL, Afghanistan — Militants attacked security forces on two sides of Kabul, killing seven people in some of the deadliest attacks near the Afghan capital in months, police said today.

Security forces also uncovered a cache of bombs inside the city of 4 million. Militants were suspected of plotting to use the weapons against international peacekeepers, police said.

It was not immediately clear whether the two attacks were coordinated, but they underscored the security threat facing the tightly guarded capital, home to thousands of foreign aid workers and diplomats, among others.

The first attack was late Monday when rebels fired rockets at a U.S.-led coalition convoy 10 miles south of Kabul. But the rockets missed their target and instead hit three civilian cars, killing six Afghans, said Khan Mohammed, the police chief in Logar province.

Three civilians were also wounded. A child was among the dead, he said.

The civilian cars were traveling close behind five military Humvee vehicles on a main north-south road when they were hit by two rockets and small-arms fire, Mohammed said.

The police chief said extra security forces rushed to the area and surrounded a run-down fort where the assailants were thought to be hiding.

A coalition spokeswoman, Sgt. Marina Evans, said she had no details on the attack.

The second assault came hours later, just before dawn today. Militants opened fire with assault rifles on a police vehicle 30 miles east of Kabul, near a key trade route linking the capital with the eastern Pakistani border, said Ghafor Khan, a police spokesman in the eastern town of Jalalabad.

The attack killed a senior police officer who was a teacher at a police academy. Two others were wounded, he said.