A plot by university students and professors to assassinate Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been discovered and the plotters, including one of his bodyguards, have been arrested by intelligence agents.

The plot's mastermind was identified as an Arab national and other suspected plotters are being hunted, Lutfullah Mashal, a spokesman for Afghanistan's National Directorate for Security, announced in a press conference on Wednesday, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Mashal said the six arrested plotters, who are affiliated with the terrorist group al Qaeda and Haqqani militants, have confessed to their plan.

Haqqani militants, who are based in Pakistan's restive tribal region of North Waziristan, are fighting Afghan and Western troops in Afghanistan.

Evidences exposing the assassination plot were found in locations raided by elite Afghan forces last week. These include money wire transferred to the plotters and laptops showing Kabul sites they also plan to attack.

The assassination plot is the fourth attempt to kill Karzai since he became the Afghan leader in 2002.

His brother, however, was not fortunate. A security guard assassinated him at his Kandahar home in July. Last month, Karzai's envoy, Burhanuddin Rabbani, was killed by a Pakistani suicide bomber.