KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan-Canadian academic who returned to Afghanistan to serve as governor of the volatile Kandahar province narrowly escaped an assassination attempt Friday.

Tooryalai Wesa, who lived in Coquitlam, B.C., before he was appointed to the post late last year, was on his way to a mosque for prayers marking the Muslim holiday of Eid.

Zelmai Ayubi, a spokesman for Wesa, says a remote-controlled roadside bomb detonated as the governor's three-car convoy passed through the centre of Kandahar city.

Ayubi says Wesa's vehicle was damaged in Friday's attack but the governor was not hurt.

Ayubi says one policeman was wounded in the attack.

When Wesa took over last year at the age of 58, he was the third governor of the volatile province in less than a year and he acknowledged the dangers of the job.

He swept to power in the span of a few days after his childhood friend, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, summoned him from his home in British Columbia to Kabul to offer him the job.

Wesa was born and raised in Kandahar, but fled Afghanistan in 1991.

He eventually settled in B.C. with his wife and three daughters and was an agricultural expert at the University of British Columbia.

About 2,700 Canadian troops are based in Kandahar province, most of them stationed at the airport on the outskirts of the city.

The city of 80,000 and is expected to be a focus of the additional buildup of tens of thousands of U.S. troops and a new campaign by Canadian forces.