KABUL: Afghanistan’s spy agency said on Wednesday it had arrested a five-member terror cell in Kabul shortly before they attempted to assassinate the country’s first vice president.
The ‘terrorist group’ were operating from the southern outskirts of Kabul, National Directorate of Security (NDS) spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told reporters.
“They were planning suicide and armed attacks on the residence of his excellency Mohammad Qasim Fahim, the first vice president” when detained 20 days ago, he said.
Mr Mashal said the group had been given instructions by Sirajudin Haqqani, the de facto leader of the Haqqani network, believed to be hiding in Pakistan and affiliated to Al Qaeda.
Haqqani is accused of being responsible for several attacks in Kabul, including suicide bombings at the Indian embassy in 2008 and 2009 and at Afghan ministry buildings, which killed and wounded scores of people.
The NDS said it had arrested 47 ‘terrorists’ in 17 groups planning to carry out suicide attacks and another 60 individuals in 22 groups responsible for abductions in the last nine months.
Kabul has been relatively peaceful in the past six months, and there have been few attacks since a ‘ring of steel’ was erected in the
city before the country’s parliamentary elections in September.
The Afghan government and around 140,000 US-led foreign troops are battling a nine-year Taliban resistance now at its deadliest since
the 2001 US-led invasion brought down their regime. —Agencies
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