[R-G] Afghans See Pakistan Role in Karzai Plot

[Anthony Fenton]

Afghans See Pakistan Role in Karzai Plot
Massoud Hossaini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/world/asia/26afghan.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin

By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA and GRAHAM BOWLEY
Published: June 26, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan government for the first time publicly  
accused the Pakistani intelligence service on Wednesday of organizing  
the failed plot to assassinate President Hamid Karzai at a parade in  
Kabul in April.
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Sayeed Ansari, spokesman for the Afghan intelligence service, in Kabul  
on Wednesday.

In a news conference in Kabul, Sayeed Ansari, the spokesman for the  
Afghan intelligence service, said Afghan authorities had evidence of  
the direct involvement of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency,  
Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, in the assassination attempt.

He said the evidence consisted of documents uncovered during the  
investigation into the assassination attempt, confessions from 16  
suspects detained after the attack and cellphone contacts. He gave no  
further details or names of officials within the Pakistani agency who  
might have been involved.

“Based on the investigation of the case and documents we found, as  
well as confessions by suspects we arrested, they show that the real  
schemers and organizers of the terrorist attack” on the celebratory  
parade on April 27 “is the intelligence organization of Pakistan, ISI,  
and its associates, which committed unforgivable crimes.”

There was no immediate public response from Pakistan, and spokesmen  
for the ISI and the Foreign Ministry did not return telephone calls  
for comment. The accusation is by far the most serious one leveled by  
Afghanistan against its neighbor.

Tensions between the countries have been rising. Last week, Mr. Karzai  
threatened to send soldiers into Pakistan to fight Islamic militant  
groups operating in the border areas to attack Afghanistan.

Mr. Karzai has said that he regards the Pakistani government as a  
friendly government, but in an escalating war of words he has urged it  
to join Afghanistan and allied nations to fight those who want to  
destabilize both countries, and to “cut the hand” that is feeding the  
militants.

The comments on Wednesday are the first in which Afghan authorities  
have made specific and public allegations that the ISI was involved in  
the attack on Mr. Karzai.

The Afghan intelligence service had already said that three of the  
people involved in the attack were in contact with people outside  
Afghanistan, including people in Miram Shah, a town in Pakistan’s  
tribal region of North Waziristan, the main base for the Taliban and  
Al Qaeda in the region.

The three, who were killed in a house raid in Kabul in the days after  
the assassination attempt, included an Afghan named Homayoun,  
suspected of directing an attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul in  
January, and a second Afghan man and a foreign woman who were planning  
suicide bombings in the city. In the past, Afghan intelligence  
officials had linked Homayoun through an intermediary to Jalaladdin  
Haqqani, a mujahedeen commander who is based in Pakistan’s tribal  
areas and has long had ties to Al Qaeda.

In the news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Ansari said cellphones  
belonging to the three recovered after their deaths yielded phone  
numbers with Pakistani codes. The numbers showed “a direct link”  
between Homayoun and the Pakistani intelligence organization, he said.

“We don’t guess about the involvement of ISI; we are saying it  
precisely,” he said. The well-coordinated attempt on Mr. Karzai’s life  
took place at the Afghan National Day military parade in central  
Kabul. Mr. Karzai escaped unhurt, but three people were killed in the  
assault: a tribal chief and a member of Parliament who were in the  
reviewing stands near Mr. Karzai, and a 10-year-old boy.

Shortly after the attack, Afghan officials suggested that the attempt  
to kill Mr. Karzai was the work of militants who had infiltrated  
Afghanistan’s security forces and had ties to groups linked to Al  
Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

The officials said that militants linked to Al Qaeda and based in  
Pakistan were working closely with the Taliban to threaten the Karzai  
government, bringing a new level of sophistication to attacks in and  
around the capital.

The assassination attempt sent government officials, diplomats and  
legislators scrambling for cover and caused a stampede of soldiers  
from the parade ground.

Abdul Waheed Wafa reported from Kabul, and Graham Bowley from New York.