Afghan intelligence officials have accused Islamist militants linked to the Taliban and backed by Pakistani security forces of carrying out the truck bombing that killed 90 people in Kabul on Wednesday.
As President Ashraf Ghani ordered the execution of 11 senior militant commanders in retaliation for the attack, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) announced that the blast was carried out by the Haqqani network, a Pashtun tribal group that nurtured Osama bin Laden and retains close links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
The group is also believed to be funded by Pakistan’s powerful spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which Afghanistan accuses of masterminding the insurgency. The latest allegation, promptly denied by Pakistan, will further deepen the bad blood between Kabul and Islamabad. Each has accused the other of harbouring terrorist groups that strike across the border.
As Kabul reeled from the attack, detonated outside the German embassy in the heart of the capital, and hundreds searched hospitals for missing loved ones, the NDS issued a statement declaring that the sewage truck packed with explosives was driven by Haqqani militants and that the strike was planned with the assistance of ISI.
“These terrorists once again proved they don’t represent any religion and they only carry out such coward attacks to please their Pakistani masters which is against all Islamic and human rights principals,” the NDS said.
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President Ghani responded by signing execution orders for 11 Haqqani and Taliban commanders in Afghan jails. Pakistan, which condemned the bombing on Wednesday, dismissed the allegation of ISI involvement as “baseless”.
“Pakistan is a victim of terrorism and has never supported violence. Our officials in Kabul embassy also got injured in the attack,” said Nafees Zakaria, spokesman for Pakistan’s foreign ministry. “Terrorist elements in Afghanistan are responsible for violence there. Afghanistan should not blame Pakistan for its own weaknesses and failure to establish peace.”
Relations between Islamabad and Kabul were already hostile before Wednesday’s attack. Pakistan closed border crossings with Afghanistan for a month following the suicide bomb attack on a Sufi shrine in Sehwan that killed 120 people in February, blaming militants who had crossed over from Afghanistan. Soldiers and civilians were killed on both sides when troops exchanged fire across the border last month.
Afghanistan, along with neighbouring India, points to the Taliban leadership ensconced in Quetta and the discovery of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad as proof that ISI is not only fomenting the Afghan insurgency but exporting international terrorism. Bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and his heir apparent, Hamza bin Laden, are both assumed to be hiding in Pakistan.
The Haqqanis have close ties to many of the Islamist groups that operate out of Pakistan. The tribe recruited bin Laden when he first joined the Mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s. At the time, the group was backed by the CIA, receiving weapons and tens of thousands of dollars as a US proxy in the Cold War.
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When US funding dried up following the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Haqqanis were adopted by ISI and turned on their former American paymasters. Since 9/11 the group has carried out a host of attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan and kidnappings of Western targets. The tribe has huge sway within the Taliban. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the popular young military commander who is operational head of the network, was joint deputy commander of the Taliban last year. Pakistan has always denied supporting the group.
