Afghanistan’s First Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum has escaped an assassination attempt by a group of Taliban militants in the northern part of the war-torn country, Press TV reports.

Dostum’s motorcade was attacked by the Taliban militants as he was passing through the Qaisar highway in Afghanistan’s northern province of Faryab on Friday.

The senior official’s bodyguards killed eight of the attackers and captured more than a dozen of them.

Dostum, who is a former army general, was dressed in military attire at the time of the attack. 

The Afghan official has a strong support in Afghanistan’s Uzbek ethnic minority.

He has been leading the battle against the Taliban in recent weeks. His forces have killed a large number of the Taliban and Daesh militants allied with them in the region.

Dostum’s close aides have blamed Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for the latest attempt on the vice president’s life.

In March, Afghanistan’s intelligence service revealed that it had neutralized another assassination attempt against Dostum by militants in northern Jawzjan province.

Dostum was a general in the Afghan army during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. He later fought against the then ruling Taliban regime in the 1990s.