KABUL - Gun shots were heard at the burial ceremony of ex-Afghan president Burhanudin Rabbani in a Kabul hilltop where people gathered to bury his coffin on Friday.

Afghan police on Friday fired into the air to disperse a large crowd gathered near a hill in the city's diplomatic enclave where slain former president Burhanuddin Rabbani was due to be buried later in the day.

"Some mourners hurled stone at the vehicles of officials who attended the burial ceremony and security guards opened fire into the air to control the situation," an eyewitness, Mohammad Karim, told Xinhua.

"There is no security threat, the situation is under control," Mohammad Zahir, head of the Kabul police Crime Investigation Unit, told Reuters.

"Many people gathered near the hilltop to attend the burial but they had not been searched or checked. Police fired into the air to disperse the crowd."

The ex-president and chairman of the government High Council for Peace was assassinated by a suicide bomber at his home in Kabul on Tuesday.