Bruce Loudon, South Asia correspondent | July 09, 2008
PAKISTAN'S spy agency was accused last night of direct involvement in the suicide bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, adding to tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours over regional terrorism.
The attack, in which more than 40 people were killed, was the first on an Indian embassy, and the outrage in New Delhi is certain to be stoked by suggestions that the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence was involved.
A report to the Afghan cabinet last night said the attack would not have been carried out without the "full support of foreign intelligence" -- a reference, sources said, to the ISI, which has long had a relationship with the Taliban.
"The terrorists no doubt could not have succeeded in launching such an atrocity without full support of foreign intelligence," it said.
The report did not directly accuse the ISI, but there was no doubt last night that the agency, closely allied to President Pervez Musharraf, was the target of the report.
"The evidence shows that the terrorists have been trained, equipped and financed in professional bases across the border," the report said, in a clear reference to Pakistan.
Kabul has frequently lashed out at Pakistan's links to the Taliban, and only last month President Hamid Karzai threatened to send the army over the board in hot pursuit of militants.
Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani yesterday denied the ISI had played a role in the bombing and said his country had no interest in destabilising Afghanistan. Mr Gilani, visiting Malaysia, said: "We want stability in the region. We ourselves are a victim of terrorism and extremism."
However, as the ISI is beyond the control of the country's new civilian government, it would be unlikely that Mr Gilani would know if the agency was involved in the attack.
"The ISI-backed Taliban will not allow any Indian consolidation in Afghanistan, nor will they allow any stability inKabul," said Ajai Sahni ofthe Institute of Conflict Management.
India strongly supported the Northern Alliance when it ousted the Taliban from Kabul and is now identified with the Government of President Karzai, which is frequently at odds with Pakistan over its failure to get to grips with Islamic militancy on its side of the border.
Pakistan's "worst nightmare", Mr Sahni said, was the establishment of a separate Pashtunistan in the tribal areas along the Durand Line bordering Afghanistan, and India had been accused of fomenting this process.
India is among the biggest providers of aid to Afghanistan and has more than 3000 officials in the country working on reconstruction projects -- something that has long caused intense irritation in Islamabad, which regards Afghanistan as its own area of influence.
Analysts in New Delhi say the suicide bombing was aimed directly at cars carrying two of the embassy's most senior officials -- military attache Brigadier Ravi Dutt Mehta, who has done much to help with the training of the Afghan army, and the highly regarded embassy political and information counsellor Venkataswara Rao. "The primary targets were the occupants of the two cars. The rest of the fatalities were collateral," analyst B.Raman said.
Source: The Australian
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