Haqqani and
ISI behind attack on Parliament, says Afghan secret agency
Published in
daily Nation, Pakistan
The Afghan spy service on Wednesday said the brazen terrorist
attack on the parliament in Kabul was carried out by the Haqqani Network in
line with a plan finalised by an officer of Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) agency.
National Directorate of
Security (NDS) spokesman Abdul Haseeb Siddiqui told the Pajhwok Afghan News
agency that the attack was "jointly designed by Maulvi Sherin, the Haqqani
Network’s operational commander, and the ISI officer Bilal" in Peshawar,
the capital of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Siddiqui said the ISI
officer, identified only as Bilal, belongs to the Zakhil tribe and
"maintained close and direct links with militants in the Tirah valley of
Khyber Agency", one of Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal districts
bordering Afghanistan.
He added 7.5 million
Pakistani rupees had been set aside for Monday's attack on the Afghan
parliament.
The NDS had dispatched
prior information to the ministries of defence and interior about the
possibility of such an attack, Siddiqui said. Additional troops had been
deployed in the vicinity of the parliament to foil the attack and Essa Khan, a
soldier who eliminated six of the attackers, had been part of the
reinforcements.
The seven attackers
involved in Monday's assault had triggered several explosions and tried to
storm the lower house of parliament at a time when the new defence minister,
Masoom Stanekzai, was being introduced for a vote of confidence.
All the attackers,
including a suicide bomber, were killed. Two civilians died and 31 others were
injured in the attack. This was the latest in a string of brazen attacks in the
Afghan capital since the Taliban launched their annual spring offensive in
April.
However, the Afghan
Taliban had claimed responsibility for the attack.
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