Afghan agencies: Pak behind Kabul blast

Indicating the possible involvement of Pakistan’s ISI in the deadly suicide blast at the Indian embassy , Afghan authorities today (July 8) said preliminary investigations revealed the terrorists had received training and logistic support from “across the border”. “We believe firmly that there is a particular intelligence agency behind it,” President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman Homayun Hamizada told reporters here but refrained from naming any country. He said it was “pretty obvious” whom he was referring to. “The sophistication of this attack and the kind of material that was used … everything has the hallmarks of a particular agency that has conducted similar attacks inside Afghanistan. We have sufficient evidence to say that,” he said. A report prepared by the Afghan Ministry of Defence said terrorists had entered the country after receiving training and logistical support from across the border, an obvious reference to Pakistan. “The terrorists no doubt could not have succeeded in launching such an atrocity without full support of foreign intelligence,” according to a summary of an Afghan cabinet meeting chaired by Karzai. Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, currently visiting Malaysia, rejected reports linking his country’s intelligence agency with the suicide bombing in Kabul. “Why should Pakistan destabilise Afghanistan? It is in our interest to have a stable Afghanistan. We want stability in the region. We ourselves are a victim of terrorism and extremism,” Gilani said in Kuala Lumpur the sidelines of the Group of Eight Developing Islamic nations’ summit. Security was beefed up in and around the Indian embassy building in Kabul, which was severely damaged in yesterday’s attack that killed 41 people, including a Brigadier-rank Defence Attache and a senior IFS officer, and wounded nearly 150 others. The attack was the deadliest in Kabul since the 2001 fall of the hardline Taliban regime in a US-led invasion. The Taliban have denied responsibility for the attack. “Whenever we do a suicide attack, we confirm it,” Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, was quoted as saying by ‘Daily Outlook,’ an online publication here. “The Taliban did not do this one,” he said. The report noted that the Taliban tend to claim responsibility for attacks that inflict heavy tolls on international or Afghan troops, and deny responsibility for attacks that primarily kill Afghan civilians. ‘Attack reminds of dangers to mankind’ India today said the attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul was a grim reminder of the dangers posed by forces of terror to the humankind and asserted that it remains committed to help Afghanistan in rebuilding the nation. “Its a great tragedy and we take it as a grim reminder of the dangers posed by the forces of terror and violence to the humankind,” Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma said after paying his respects to Venkateswara Rao, an IFS officer, who died in yesterday’s attack at the embassy. Sharma said the world has joined India in condemning the “great tragedy” which has “brutally cut-short” the life of a young officer who had an “illustrious career”. India remains committed to help Afghanistan in rebuilding the country and the people of that country who have “suffered enough at the hands of Taliban”, Sharma said.