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'Pak ISI plotted all attacks in Afghanistan'

Last updated on: May 25, 2010 11:19 IST

Afghanistan has accused Pakistan's Inter State Intelligence of plotting all explosions and terror attacks on its soil, including a recent suicide bombing that killed 18 people, six of them North Atlantic Treaty Organisation soldiers.

"All the explosions and terrorist attacks by these people (terrorists) were plotted from the other side of the border and most of the explosives and materials used for the attacks were brought from the other side to Afghanistan,"

Afghanistan's Intelligence spokesperson Saeed Ansari was quoted as saying by The New York Times.

"Of course, when we say that those attacks were plotted from the other side of the border, the intelligence service of our neighbouring country has definitely had its role in equipping and training of this group (Taliban)," he said, referring to Pakistan's ISI.

His comments came a week after a suicide bomber drove a van packed with explosives into a convoy of SUVs, killing six NATO personnel and 12 civilians.

Indian officials and civilians based in Afghanistan have also been subject to several attacks by militants. In 2008, a suicide bomber targeted the Indian embassy killing 41 people.

In February this year, militants attacked two guesthouses frequented by Indians killing 16 people.

"Afghan officials have frequently accused the Pakistani intelligence agency of supporting the Afghan Taliban and have voiced suspicions about the agency's role in Taliban suicide attacks on Indian targets in Kabul," the report said.

Afghanistan government has arrested seven people in connection with the NATO attacks. The men are also reportedly connected with the attack on the guesthouses in February, Ansari said.

The New York Times said that suspects are all Afghans aged 21 to 45, lived in Kabul and included a schoolteacher, a taxi driver and a trading company employee.

Ansari released names and photos of the suspects as well as videotaped confessions.

One man had been identified as the second-in-command of the Taliban suicide-bombing cell and their commander was a man known as Dawood, the Taliban's shadow governor for Kabul.

"In the confessions, each a few minutes long, the men admitted having various roles in the attacks, from providing vehicles to storing explosives. They said the attacks had been organised while they were in the Pakistani city of Peshawar," the report said.

However, the paper noted that the suspects did not explicitly implicate the Pakistani ISI or officials in their plot.
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