Senior Afghan official says Pakistan aided Kabul suicide bombing

ISI HQ

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A senior advisor to the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai has accused Pakistani intelligence services of aiding suicide bombers strike targets in Afghan capital Kabul and other areas in Afghanistan. Speaking last week to Reuters news agency, Davood Moradian, senior policy aide in the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, alleged that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency systematically helps “anti-Western militants” in Afghanistan mount attacks against civilian and military targets alike. Moradian hinted that the ISI assistance to the militants is sanctioned by senior officials in the Pakistani government. The latter view it as a means to “arouse Western concern for stability” in Pakistan, which may in turn translate into increasing Western financial aid poring to the country, said Moradian. The Afghan government advisor went on to claim that the ISI helped organize the July 7, 2008, bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, which killed 58 people, including two Indian diplomats, and wounded 141. The bombing was the deadliest suicide attack in Kabul since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Moradian said the government of Afghanistan has in its possession “records of […] ISI officers directing” the attack on the embassy, and that it has “shared that information with the intelligence community”. The allegations are certain to further deteriorate the strained intelligence relationship between Washington and Islamabad.