Karzai : Afghan spy chief attack planned in Pakistan

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Saturday a suicide attack that wounded the country's spy chief was planned in neighbouring Pakistan, and added he would raise the issue with Islamabad. The president did not openly blame Pakistan over the attack on Asadullah Khalid in Kabul on Thursday but said the Taliban would not have been able to carry out the bombing and that "bigger hands were involved". The Taliban had claimed responsibility for the attack on the head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), which was carried out by an attacker posing as a Taliban peace envoy with a bomb hidden in his underwear. "We know that this man who came in the name of a guest to meet with Asadullah Khalid came from Pakistan. We know that for a fact. That is clear," Karzai told reporters. "This attack was plotted... from the (southwestern) city of Quetta in Pakistan. I will raise this issue with Pakistan." He added that the Taliban, Islamic hardliners who have been waging an insurgency against US-led foreign forces supporting the government in Afghanistan, "cannot carry out such attacks". "It was an absolutely professional and engineered attack -- bigger hands were involved," he said. Kabul last year blamed Pakistan for the assassination of the head of Afghanistan's High Peace Council, Burhanuddin Rabbani, also killed by a bomber posing as a Taliban peace envoy, claims which Pakistan rejected. Relations between the neighbours are often tense and Kabul has accused Pakistan of supporting the Taliban, accusations Islamabad has always rejected, insisting it is committed to fighting the insurgents. In a statement claiming responsibility for Thursday's bombing, several hours after it took place at a spy agency guesthouse, the Taliban named the attacker as "hero mujahid Hafiz Mohammad". Khalid is now being treated at a US-run military hospital at Bagram airbase outside Kabul where he is in a stable condition, security sources have said. On Friday, the NDS said that he was "recovering" and in a "satisfactory" condition. Karzai has paid a visit to Khalid since the attack, signalling his importance in the fight against the Taliban as NATO forces prepare to withdraw in 2014. On Friday, the intelligence agency said investigators found that "the organisers of this suicide attack... skillfully placed the explosives in the underpants and around the genitals of the suicide attacker". It is believed to be the first time in Afghanistan that a suicide bomber has carried the explosives in his underpants. The fact that an assassin was able to get so close to one of Afghanistan's most prominent officials had raised questions about whether the visitor was an insider known to Khalid. But the revelation that the explosives were hidden in his underwear could also suggest that he might not have been thoroughly searched on that part of his body -- an omission in many security searches in Afghanistan. Khalid, known for being a fierce anti-Taliban figure and close to Karzai, had only been in the job for a couple of months before Thursday's attack.