Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, responsible for the Mumbai terror attack, was today blamed by an Afghan intelligence official for last week's car bomb and suicide attacks that killed 16 people, including six Indians, in the heart of the capital.
Saeed Ansari, a spokesman for Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, told The Associated Press today that his agency has evidence that Pakistanis were involved in the attacks. He said several of the attackers were heard speaking Urdu. Six Indians were among the dead in the attacks.
Lashkar-e-Taiba is the same group India blames for the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks that killed 166 people, further souring relations between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan.
The Afghan Taliban had already claimed responsibility within hours of Friday's assaults that targeted residential hotels popular with foreigners, but the assertion that a Pakistan-based militants were involved threatened to derail tentative peace talks between Pakistan and India.
Ansari also said that the Taliban "had no knowledge" of the Kabul attacks up to five hours after they began.
However, an Afghan Taliban spokesman telephoned an Associated Press reporter about 2 hours after the attacks began Friday to claim responsibility and said foreigners were the target.
