July 09, 2008	Wednesday	Rajab 5, 1429

KABUL, July 8: A suicide bomb attack on the Indian Embassy in the Afghan capital bore all the hallmarks of a foreign intelligence agency, Afghanistan’s presidential spokesman said on Tuesday in a likely reference to Pakistan.

Afghanistan has accused Pakistani agents of being behind the April assassination attempt against President Hamid Karzai, a mass jail break in Kandahar last month and a string of other attacks.

“Everything has the hallmark of a particular intelligence agency that has conducted similar terrorist acts inside Afghanistan in the past,” Humayun Hamidzada told a news conference a day after the embassy attack that killed 41 people.

A suicide car bomb rammed into the gates of the Indian embassy in Kabul on Monday, killing two Indian diplomats and two Indian guards. Most of the other victims were people waiting in line for visas and shoppers at a nearby market.

“We believe firmly that there is a particular intelligence agency behind it,” said Hamidzada. “I’m not going to name it anymore, I think it’s pretty obvious.”

Afghan analysts claim Pakistan is unsettled by the close relations between its main rival India and Afghanistan, a country it sees as being in its own sphere of influence.

Pakistani agents, they argue, are aiding Taliban insurgents so that Pakistan is able to achieve strategic depth and allow its forces to concentrate on defending the border with India.

“It was interesting to know that the Taliban denied responsibility,” Hamidzada said.

“But the suicide attack in the Afghan capital Kabul and the other provinces are conducted by the same people, that is the Taliban movement and their foreign instructors who pave the way for them.”—Reuters